Married But Available. B. Nyamnjoh

by Innocent. They included a TV set, a compact disc set, a fan, a Moulinex blender, a fridge, and a wool carpet, just to name a few. He also feeds and clothes her. He buys her expensive body lotions, perfumes, shoes, jewellery, clothes and airtime for the cute little cell phone he bought her as a birthday present.

      “Health-wise, Innocent takes good care of Emma whenever she is sick. It should be noted that his ‘generosity’ extends to Emma’s junior sister. He settles their hospital bills and pays their transport back home during vacation, among other things here and there, now and again. This keeps Emma’s junior sister happy and stops her from reporting her elder sister to their parents, and perhaps from aspiring to be like her sister.

      “Innocent takes Emma to social gatherings like parties and also to nightclubs, like Black & White in Sakersbeach, M&G in Puttkamerstown, Biblos in Sawang and even Libidinal in distant Nyamandem. At times he takes her friends and junior sister along with them.

      “Socially, Innocent does his best to satisfy Emma but she is always annoyed. She never seems to have enough since he is not usually there when she needs him. As a ‘responsible’ married man, he has to spend time with his family, but as a lover, she needs him just as much. And he loves the way she makes him feel proud, especially when she says things like: ‘You may not be the only man I have known, but you are certainly the only one who has marked me’.

      “Word reached Innocent’s wife that he was having an affair with Emma. Like a puff adder she stayed cool initially and pleaded with her informant to watch them at close range. It was therefore not surprising when she surprised her husband at Emma’s apartment one weekend. Innocent had left the house saying he was going to their home village for an urgent funeral, only for his wife to meet his car parked outside Emma’s apartment. She rapped at the door continuously, shouting her husband’s name, claiming that their baby son was critically sick. But Innocent didn’t answer. She left, and I don’t have any details how they resolved matters that day.

      “If you permit, I would add here that in other instances where wives have met their husbands in similar situations, they have destroyed their cars and caused quite a scene. There is the story of a university professor whose wife caught him in the act at a resting place, destroyed his car, stormed the door and pulled the girl out of bed and went into a fight with her. She then drove the car home, making her husband bear the shame of taking a taxi home to face her wrath.”

      Britney watched Lilly Loveless take notes and was impressed. Even with the recorder on, Lilly Loveless wrote frantically as if she distrusted her very own recorder terribly. Britney could see that Lilly Loveless was intimate with her subject matter, reading far more in the account Britney was sharing than Britney who collected the data. It would be great to read that notebook of hers some day, Britney wished. In a beautiful and mysterious way, she imagined the words in the pages of Lilly Loveless’ notebook reaching out and touching her, saying: ‘welcome to the life of Lilly Loveless, our beloved foster mother’. Britney wondered what would happen if Lilly Loveless were to lose her notebook.

      She continued with the story. “Emma was not happy with what Innocent’s wife did, and with the fact that Innocent stayed married to his wife despite claiming he loved her more. How could he swear by the moon and the stars in the skies, and by his dead father and the Almighty God how much he loved and would love her till the end of time, yet do little about the fact that he was a married man and she a spinster desperately seeking marriage? So, to get even with him, she dated a student, what we normally call at the university a ‘flying-shirt’ – no wallet, no power, easily disposable – a man of no consequence. Someone who has little more than words and idle moments to offer the girl he claims he loves. Mbomas hate flying-shirts, and crave every girl to tell them: ‘I only open my legs up to older men like you.’”

      Lilly Loveless laughed. “How funny,” she said. “And they believe it?”

      “Men are so easily flattered you can’t imagine the sort of things they fall for,” Britney replied, and continued with the story. “Amongst girls, it is a common presupposition that every girl who goes out with a married man has a permanent boyfriend, as every girl is interested in a more meaningful relationship than most married men can offer, however much they claim they love you. But girls also know that you can’t just leave a Mboma like that. You have to do it with tact, else you are in trouble. Mbomas are known to curse, crash and crush without mercy, when betrayed.”

      “To avoid all the tensions, anger, beatings, claims for gifts to be returned, and the odd passion killing now and again?”

      “Absolutely,” agreed Britney.

      “Sometimes a relationship is not true until it has been tested by betrayal,” remarked Lilly Loveless.

      “Yes,” said Britney. “In this case however, everything went on smoothly, as Emma successfully juggled Innocent and her student friend, until she met and fell for a young ‘bushfaller’ with lovely dreadlocks who introduced himself as ‘a professional footballer in Muzunguland who was back home to chill out after a hectic season’. Bushfallers are guys who have been abroad and accumulated enough money and material possessions to make their weight felt back home, especially with young singletons. Topping the bushfaller league are footballers, who are generally the well-paid.”

      “Sorry to interrupt, but could you tell me more about bushfallers?” Lilly Loveless was hungry for more.

      “What else?” asked Britney, “apart from the fact that more and more Mimbolanders feel that salvation is possible these days only through going to Muzunguland or elsewhere in the world associated with milk and honey, where most of them slave away in very difficult and often subhuman conditions, but which isn’t deterrent enough for those with ambitions of bushfalling? Bushfalling has become so common that someone can be here with you, and a minute later you hear he or she has fallen bush.”

      “Why do they call it bushfalling?”

      “It is a metaphor for hunting, I think. Those who go to Muzunguland are like hunters who go into the bush to hunt for game. And just like the hunter returns to the village at the end of the hunt, the bushfaller is expected to return to Mimboland to show family and friends what in terms of money and material possessions they have gained. Those who don’t return and who don’t repatriate money and possessions are not well regarded, just as those who return empty-handed. A hunter is a good hunter when there is a catch. Similarly, only bushfallers with something to show back home shall be recognised and celebrated. A hunter is also expected to be generous with their catch, hence the common saying here in Mimboland which goes thus: ‘Bushfaller weh ye no di leak like kenja fowl by the time ye go back for whitemankontri, mean say dat bushfaller na Japanese handbrake.’”

      “Which means?”

      “A bushfaller who is not leaking like water in the perforated basket in which fowls are carried locally by the time he returns to Muzunguland, means that he is far from being generous.”

      “Wow, that’s great,” said Lilly Loveless, “an invitation for bushfallers to make their success collective, eh? What are local attitudes towards bushfallers who don’t make it or who disappear for good?”

      “I don’t know if you’d understand, but I want to quote my auntie who has a very negative attitude towards Muzunguland, especially in the way it transforms those who embrace it through bushfalling. She says: ‘Whiteman Kontri di over spoil pikin dem. Na some dorti place. Man di die 20 year, mama die, papa die, pikin no come. Na which kana place be dat? Pikin di comot for Whiteman Kontri come for try for sell hi papa hi house for here. Na which kana fall bush be dat? Better make ma pikin fall bush for backside house…”

      Britney attempted a translation for Lilly Loveless who took down notes. Satisfied, Lilly Loveless told Britney she could continue with her story.

      “This bushfaller brought foreign currency, a nice car, and promised to take Emma to the altar. A dream come true – walking down the aisle with a man of your age or thereabouts. She was so excited that she defied all odds to date the bushfaller. Not long afterwards, Innocent learned of the relationship from none other than Emma and was very bitter.”

      “Emma