Chapter 21

In my lack of something to say I told her that I enjoyed her meal. It wasn't that I didn't enjoyed the meal; I really enjoyed it but I had never been used to paying compliments. Nancy received my compliments with a smile. After the meal I told her I wanted to go to town. You can't leave me alone in the house!' I heard.

I told her I wouldn't stay long and started to go amidst protests from her. I didn't care. I left.

I told a taxi driver to take me to any night club he knew of.

He drove to a night club called Green Park. It was 7 p.m. when I entered, I discovered that Green Park Club was the roughest rendezvous I had ever gone to, north of River Benue. Everybody in that night club was drunk. People smoked cigarettes as if it was a smoking competition. The loudness of the music being played debarred hearing. Public women roamed about in drunken abandon. I simply couldn't stand the sight. I had wanted to go away but I decided to take a bottle of beer since that was what brought me there.

I went to the counter to request for a bottle of

beer. It took me three minutes of shouting before the bar man could hear what I was saying. The rough nature of the club forced me to drink my beer in a rush since I wanted to leave the place.

In five minutes I had gulped down everything. I left the hotel and took a taxi back to Kwaghtagher's house.

The taxi dropped me on the main road, which was close to Kwaghtagher's house. As I began to approach the house I saw Nancy moving the curtain from the window, probably to see who

was coming. She was fully dressed, and I was able to see this very clearly.

I entered the parlour and met an empty space. Where had she gone to so soon? I went and peeped into the kitchen to see if she was there. She wasn't there. I began to wonder if she had

grown wings and had flown from the room. I quickly went into the bedroom to see if she was there. What I saw in the bedroom brought all my manhood to action. Nancy was standing stark

naked with her back to me. She was opening the window andvpretended that she wasn't aware of my arrival.

I looked at her nude figure from head to toe. The shape of her bottom nearly made me mad. I resisted a very powerful urge to pounce on her.

and throw her on the bed, and withdrew to the parlour. Few minutes later Nancy came into the parlour, properly dressed. 'Ah! you are back? She asked. I nodded. What's on her mind? I excused myself and went to my cell and started to read

my novel. When I was about to finish reading the novel, I was jolted to attention by a terrible noise from her bedroom as if five plates had simultaneously broken or a flask has been smashed against the wall.

It was such a shattering noise that I called her

on impulse, from my room, to see if she was safe. 'Nancy!

Nancy!' I called. There was no reply. I jumped out of my bed and rushed to her room to see what was wrong. Nothing was wrong:

Nancy was bending down to remove a plate from the floor, stark naked. 'Oh! You are here!' She said and ran in a mock hurry to her bed to remove a wrapper with which she covered her body.

I apologised to her for surprising her and left her room, fully aware that she was the one surprising me. What's this woman up to? Although I wasn't Mohammed Ali, I had my own personal ethics concerning married women.

I picked the novel again and finished reading it in less than twenty minutes. I was idle till night time when supper engaged me for some minutes. I longed for the next day when I could go to Christian Bookshop and get my letter of appointment from Raphael Ekanem. At least this would engage me for four months when I might have succeeded in securing a better appointment in the office of the terrible Mohammed Ali.

A knock on my door jolted me to attention. The time was 3 a.m. Who could it be? An armed robber? A burglar? I stood up from the bed 'in panic. There was another knock, which increased

my panic more than ever. Who could be knocking? I looked around the room to see if there was any weapon which I could use for self-defence. I couldn't find any weapon. There was a third knock. This nearly made me faint out of fear. After a panicky search of the room, I saw two empty bottles of beer in the room. I quickly picked them. I was satisfied that if I broke a

bottle on the head of any intruder, he could have gone for life.

Holding the bottles each in one hand in a battle ready position I shouted 'Who is that?' It wasn't a burglar who answered. It was Nancy. She told me from outside to come to her aid because she

was dying.

I opened the door and met her in her wrapper. So you have been drinking beer?' I told her they were empty bottles which I had picked for self-defence when I heard her knock. 'You are brave. If it were my husband he'd jump out through the window?" I heard. I asked her what was wrong. 'I am dying of

waist pain,' she said. Waist pain? There was no vehicle to convey her to the hospital and I told her so. Nancy told me to follow her to her bedroom and treat it the way her husband always did. I

followed her to her room and she lay on the bed. I heard from her that the treatment was for me to press her waist with all my might.

I didn't argue about this therapy. I began to massage her waist.

In the process she was screaming in pain. I was later to discover that it was a mock pain. Nancy turned on her bed, and like magic her wrapper fell off, showing me her bare succulent breasts. She was nude at this time. I fought desperately to control my urge. She told me to shake her here and there. This type of therapy, I was told, would quickly cure the ailment. I shook her here and there, and her breasts shook along with it. Then in

protest against what I didn't know, I told her I wasn't going on with the therapy again, and left her alone in her room, cursing myself for restraining my urge because of my own ethics.

I was sure that even Mohammed Ali could have thrown his ethics away in this circumstance. ...

In the morning she woke me up and told me that water was ready for me in the bathroom. After having a bath I stuck the money Mmembe gave me into my pockets and went to the road with the aim of locating a fashion store and buying clothes for myself.