Married But Available. B. Nyamnjoh

replied Britney.

      “That was courageous of her, a sign that she had fallen deeply in love, I suppose.”

      “No, it was a sign of confusion, I think,” Britney corrected. “She always had this dream of marrying someone her age in a formal church ceremony. And as if to increase her chances of fulfilling her dream, she had served as bridesmaid at so many weddings that some of her friends had nicknamed her ‘the professional bridesmaid’. It was only reluctantly that she went out with Innocent, so you can imagine her disappointment when he still would not divorce his wife to marry her.”

      “Already several times before, she had challenged him to do something about his marriage, with words like these: ‘Of course your marriage is a problem for me, even though you say that your feelings for me are not second to another love. The fact remains that I am forced to share you with at least one other woman, who occupies a very special and privileged position in your life. Is that not something to feel sad and jealous about? I try to refrain from knowing more about her than absolutely necessary, as I know that if I start to try to imagine who your wife is and what your relationship with her entails, I will be overcome by an obsessive hunger to know every detail, feeling myself in competition with her, forcing you to prove again and again that you care for me – a fact that is not all that self-evident considering the fact that you spend almost every night with her and not with me. The less I know about your wife, the easier it is for me to ignore her presence, to see her as a kind of institution, but not so much as a person who is in my way. And though you don’t like the word ‘mistress’, I am well aware that my position would always be precisely that: secret meetings, stolen time, anonymous rooms in resting places, no integration in every day life because of the clandestine status of our relationship, constant jealousy on my part, constant on your part that I might be swept off my feet by some suitor who didn’t need to hide me away…’”

      “So what did she tell him when the bushfaller came along?”

      “She wrote him a note, a copy of which she showed me: ‘Dear Innocent,’ she wrote, ‘I know you love and care for me, which makes me want to say something that I would not be able to stand by when the time comes and consequently I become so confused. I just can’t be a second wife or keep going out with you as if your wife was not there. The fact is that I love and respect you so much and therefore believe that you deserve the very best in life. You deserve to be happy, successful and prosperous and nothing should come between you and all these things not even me. However, I have my own plans and dreams which I selfishly cling onto. Like you rightly said, and I admit I want a future in which someone will stand and wait for me at the end of the aisle. But this is not going to be just anybody like you think. I will be looking for something in particular in that person and that something will be all you are as a person. The question I imagine you will ask is, why I have refused to take you yet look for somebody like you. All I will say is that, I am not strong enough to live above what society thinks and that will not make you as happy as you deserve to be.’ That’s the note she sent Innocent.”

      “So Innocent must have learnt of the bushfaller from elsewhere and only indirectly from Emma,” Lilly Loveless pointed out.

      “What is important is the fact that Innocent came to know of the bushfaller,” said Britney.

      “How did he take it, when he found out?”

      “He couldn’t believe he had spent and sacrificed so much only to be treated so shabbily. Emma didn’t give a damn despite all Innocent’s threats to empty her apartment. At the same time, Innocent was so much in love that he couldn’t bear to lose Emma, as he told his best friend and keeper of his secrets. But if you would permit me, I think the right word is infatuation, considering how he was repeatedly humiliated by Emma in front of the bushfaller, yet he couldn’t do without her. Jilted though Innocent was for three months, right now he is hand in glove with Emma. The bushfaller was a fly by night lover, saying all the right things a girl wants to hear and making her dream what was never to be. He dribbled her the way he did the ball in a football game.

      “Still, Emma found it hard to stop believing, in her heart of hearts, that the bushfaller had meant all the honeyed words he had directed her way. But the reality was that his words, meaningful though they sounded, were as empty as words not said. So she turned back to her Innocent, reluctantly but surely, to ask for forgiveness. She told him: ‘Forget about the difficulties and trials we have been through and be as happy as ever. God’s blessings and graces will stay with you through my humble prayer. Remember, I love you and you are the one and only true owner of my body. Moments and time spent with you are very precious and my brief escapade only permitted me to view those moments with happiness and assurance. I know that with you I will always eat the fattest of the bones.’”

      “It’s amazing, this thing called love,” said Lilly Loveless.

      “Emma continues to hope that one day Innocent will divorce his wife and marry her, or at least not leave her for greener pastures. She lives her life with her hand in her mouth. A situation not helped by his mixed messages. Recently when a friend of hers told him: ‘Innocent, I love that Emma very much, her eyes, her legs. She is so beautiful’, he replied: ‘Would you like me to take her as my second wife?’ To which she said in reply: ‘Yes! First even.’ Then she proceeded to say she was very pleased when she first heard that he was going out with Emma. When Innocent met Emma later he said: ‘I’ve never been this encouraged by someone this close to you.’ So what stops him from acting on his divorce then?

      “Emma dreams a lot, and Innocent is often in her dreams. She shared with me a dream she had recently. She dreamt Innocent was travelling to Muzunguland for a public service meeting. The day he was supposed to leave for Sawang International Airport, she heard Innocent was hurrying up everyone in the house and his wife and children were so angry and said: ‘Everybody knows he is hurrying to go and spend time with his girlfriend Emma, but he should at least be a bit calm and stop rushing people’. Innocent’s wife was very very angry. In the dream, Emma had a dream that same night she learnt of what happened, a dream she narrated to Innocent thus: ‘I dreamt that we were at the airport and we were going to Muzunguland together, and we were so into each other and all of a sudden your wife came shouting my name and saying horrible things, telling the whole airport that I was stealing her husband. I was so frightened, I hid behind you as she was approaching where we stood, you told her to be calm but she insisted on attacking me, and you started fighting. I started crying and my mother appeared and picked a quarrel with your wife. I was seriously crying. I told my mother that you had divorced your wife and wanted us to live together and she said we were doing the wrong thing because your children will always want their mother. I was shouting that they would love me and that I was quite fond of your daughter in high school, but no one except you was listening to me and just when your wife was about to hit me, I woke up. Funny, isn’t it?’”

      “It’s clear she is obsessed with Innocent divorcing his wife, but even more obsessed with having a man of her own who has not been married before,” said Lilly Loveless.

      “Good interpretation,” said Britney. “I do wish her the best.”

      “With Innocent?”

      “With whoever. A woman plans and God disposes through man.”

      “Well put, could I quote that?”

      “You can quote anything,” said Britney. “Something I forgot to say about Innocent is that, at the same time as he is pursuing Emma and university girls, and boasting how well he provides for his family, it surfaces that he is not paying his rent regularly for the lovely house he inhabits with his family. One day his wife was scandalised to read a mocking and threatening note from his landlady about non-payment of his rent: ‘I have observed with dismay your unwillingness to pay your rent and the reluctance in settling your bills. I have explained to you about the inconveniences you cause me when you delay your rent. It would seem the explanation only gave you more grounds to delay the payments of your rent. I want to remind you that we agreed from the very beginning that your rent is to be paid at the beginning of the month. You have not only taken it upon yourself to pay at your convenience but you don’t have the courtesy to inform me of any difficulties you have.