Chapter 43 INCOGNITO

S E G U N

Steam rolls out of the drink in my hand like a vertical carpet. It covers my nose and fogs my view of the peeling brown varnish on the sitting room door.

Stacy's school books are scattered all over the now-scuffed wooden table, drawing my attention to a crisp paper with mother's words scrawled across in black pen, all caps. Her instructions which include drinking this mug full of honey and lemon drink and making sure to keep my hope alive, are all written in English.

Anything that has to do with loving me is written in Yoruba.

Oba me. She calls me. My king.

I cough violently, my throat closimg up for a few seconds.

This is what happens whenever I force myself to drink her concoctions.

I distastefully eye the mug in my hand, and drop it on the table.

Once I retreat into my room, I open the bedside table drawer and bring out some sheaf of papers and a pen. As I raise the pen, poised to write, my eyes fall on the smiling picture of Eve on top of the bedside table.

Confident the words will flow this time, I put pen to paper and begin.

Dear Eve . . .

I strike a line across it and start again.

Dear Princess . . .

Shaking my head, I draw a line across it as well.

My baby . . .

Too corny.

I let out an annoyed sigh, and draw a line across it too.

The crossed out words stare at me, as well as the rest of the empty sheet. They mock me, daring me to have a go at it.

For some time now I've been meaning to write her a letter, but the words remain stuck in my heart. Whatever words I pen down seem empty to me.

On a bunch, I close my eyes, imagining she's actually here with me. Her image rears up in my mind. She smiles, and her dimples flash like two stars on her cheeks. She holds out her hands, beckoning me to come to her, but just as I stand, her image dissipates completely, leaving me with an empty hollow feeling in my chest.

I open my eyes and slump onto the bed, realising it was just a mirage. I'm instinctively drawn to stare at her picture once again.

Where are you?

All the pent-up frustration wells up, galvanising me to grab the piece of paper and pen and begin writing.

This time, the words flow seamlessly.

To the one I lost,

It's been six months.

Six months since I last saw you.

Since months of chasing a shadow.

Six months of nothingness since you left.

You once told me to promise never to leave you.

Do you remember? We were in Abeokuta, and frankly speaking, I couldn't care less if we were in the middle of an ocean, all I wanted was to be with you.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have suggested -- NO! Demanded, rather, that we dissapear into the sunset and live happily ever after.

The times I spent with you were the best period of my entire life, apart from when I found my mother.

Do you know I finally met my real mother?

She was right under my nose all this while. You've even met her before, and she keeps telling me not to loose hope in finding you.

You gave me hope, my love. You gave me a new meaning to life. You were the one who taught me how to love. Truly love.

How then can you expect me to forget you?

How do you expect me to even forgive you for going away without taking me along with you?

How do you expect me to fulfill the promise I made to never leave you when you're the one who left me.

This is going to sound funny, but would you believe it when I tell you . . . alright, I know you wouldn't believe it unless you see it for yourself, but I don't want to live anymore. At least not without you in my life.

I know you'll laugh and say I love life too much and that's true, but if you're not in it, what's the point?

Eve, my heart yearns for you. It's fucking incomplete without you.

Where are you?

Without warning, my eyes mist over, and the words begin to blur, as tears fall onto the paper, blotting out the words I've been penning.

I've been doing it a lot - crying.

And I don't even have to fake it.

Suddenly the sitting room door bangs shut and voices reach out to me.

I hastily wipe my face, making sure to clean it of any remnant of tears, then bundle the sheaf of papers, including the one I'd been writing on, inside the bottom drawer.

A knock sounds off on the door, startling me.

"May I come in?" I look up to see Dipo standing in the open door way clutching something in his hands.

I should have locked the door.

Too late.

So I shrug, and he walks in.

His steps are hesitant. Unsure.

He comes to a stop, a foot away from me but doesn't say anything. He just mopes at me.

When I'm not able to take his sad moping any longer, I say something. "You just gonna stand there and stare at me like I'm some apparition?"

After a few seconds of silence, he moves closer to me. "I don't know what to say. You look like ----"

"SHIT!" A female voice vehemently declares. Ebere suddenly materialises from behind Dipo with a disgusted look on her face. "Yeah, I said it. You look exactly like SHIT!"

How she was able to walk into the room undetected beats me, but then again, I'm always lost in thoughts of Eve, so it's quite easy for anyone to come in without me knowing.

"Segun, why are you doing this to yourself?" A look of pity flashes across her features as she comes fully into the room. "You don't eat, neither are you getting enough sleep judging from the bags under your eyes, and look at you, you're all skin and bones now. I know you're hurting, but so am I. Heck, we're all hurting. She wasn't just my best friend, you know, she was also my sister. We've searched everywhere for her and we'll continue to do so, but life still has to go on. Please, Segun, I'm begging you, step out of this state you're in, please."

By the time she's finished, anger has replaced the sadness inside me, fuelling my weak body with adrelanine. So I stand and face her, letting loose an outburst of words. "DO YOU KNOW WHY MY BEHAVIOUR SEEMS STRANGE TO YOU?" I walk close to her. "FIND SOMEONE, FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM, AND THEN LOOSE HIM," then I turn to Dipo. "OR LOOSE HER, THEN COME BACK AND TELL ME HOW TO BEHAVE." Suddenly, I feel drained. So I continue in a more quiet voice. "But right now, please just go away and leave me alone to think in peace of the love of my life."

Once I'm done, I walk to the window, and take up my place there.

Silence reigns afer my outburst. I hear some rustling, but I don't turn around. I reckon they'll both leave me alone now.

"The launch went well." Dipo's voice suddenly pierces the quiet of the room. He doesn't say more for a few seconds, but then decides to continue speaking. "Um . . . everyone asked of you, so I told them you'd travelled."

His voice takes on a stronger tone as he becomes earnest. "So many people are already vying for the shopping malls and shops. In a bid to outdo themselves, they're even willing to pay more than the asking price. We're going to be huge, The king, we did it." His voice reaches a crescendo, but it does nothing for me.

The damage of Eve's dissapearance is irreparable.

When he notices my silence, he clears his throat somewhat noisily. Somewhat embarrassingly. Somewhat weakly. And I almost turn, but my resolve strenghens at the last second, and I stay put.

This time his voice comes out resignedly. "I miss you bro, we were an inseperable team, and I miss the fact that ------" I loose track of what he's saying and withdraw into my own thoughts.

His words get cut off completely, when I hear Ebere screaming at the top of her voice from the sitting room.

"SEGUN DOESN'T WANT YOU. HE DOESN'T NEED YOUR BAD ENERGY AROUND HERE, SO TAKE YOUR TIRED SELF AND YOUR NIPPLE ACTION OUT OF THIS PLACE, AND TRY TO KEEP YOUR DAMN LEGS CLOSED."

Then I hear the bang of the sitting room door, and then silence. This time, I turn around to see Dipo staring forlonly at me.

"You weren't listening to what I said, I'm sure." He looks at me with no form of accusation in his eyes, just resignation. "Well . . . I'll just leave this here."

I nod as he drops something on the bed, even though he's already turning away and can't see me.

I want to go outside and find out what the whole ruckus was about, but my feet refuse to move. I'm suddenly exhausted. I close my eyes and squeeze them. Maybe if I do, some of the tiredness in them will ebb, but I know that's not possible. Once I open them again, they land on the foot of the bed, where Dipo left something for me to see, so I walk towards it.

The cover page reads A & D shopping mall launch.

The launch Dipo and I had been looking forward to since we started the project.

Mother, Dipo and Ebere went for it earlier in the day. They begged and cajoled me to come with, but it was an exercise in futility. I didn't have the drive to do anything.

All I wanted to do was sit and think of Eve.

I abandon it when I see a newspaper peeking out from underneath it. Once I fish it out, my eyes almost pop out as I take in the words boldly typed on the front page of ''This day' newspaper.

A & D LAUNCH.

Two best friends, Dipo and Aureliano, set out to make a legacy - a name in the sales industry, and they did it with the magnificent edifice at Atlantic land. Their names will forever go down in history . . .

With a disgruntled noise, I wrench my eyes away from it and stand, once more retreating to my perch at the window, where I gaze out at nothing.

I don't deserve the credits.

I don't deserve it at all.

For the past six months, I'd left Dipo all alone to finish up work on the site. I never once ventured out of the house. I left him to handle issues without any complaints from him, without any fuss, without even having a head project manger . . .

Without Eve.

Without me.

I can't even begin to wrap my head around the stress he must have faced, not being able to ask me for advice and having to put finishing touches to everything, all alone.

I shake my head, clearly distressed, but not able to do anything about it.

I'm still ruminating on this when a knock sounds off at the door, yet again. This time, I'm fully aware when someone comes into the room, but I still don't turn round.

I hear some noise as the person sits on my bed, but says nothing. Curious as to who it is, I turn round.

"Mother!"

She quickly wipes her eyes and pastes a tremulous smile on her face.

"Oba me, how are you feeling?"

She once told me when I hurt, she feels it ten thousand folds. I can't even begin to imagine how she's feeling right now.

Instead of asking how she is, my lips form something else.

"Mother, what was all the ruckus about earlier on?"

"It was your ex . . . Roxy, she came to see you, but Ebere ----"

"She's not my ex! We weren't anything to each other. She was just a mistake."

She nods, and then decides to change the topic. "Well I'm not here to talk about her. I actually came to talk to you about your fath----"

"I DON'T HAVE A FATHER!" I grate out tersely.

"Alright, you fell from the sky and into my arms. That's alright, son, I'm here to talk to you about Mr. Faseun and how I met him."

I raise incredulous eyes at her.

Does she honestly think I want to know about that now?

Instead of voicing my thoughts, I sigh and nod, giving her the go-ahead.

She takes a deep breath and plunges on. "Your father was on the run from the police when I met him."

That gets me sitting up immediately. On the run?

She nods and continues spilling a can of worms. "I was waiting for a customer at the usual spot. It was a slow night, and some of the other women had already begun complaining about the fact that no customer had fallen into their clutches yet. They said if in one hour's time they don't get any customer, they'd call it a night. As if the universe heard our grumblings, a car drove at fast speed towards us and came to an abrupt stop in front of me. A man jutted his head out of the car and addressed me with obvious fear in his voice. It was your father."

At this point, I move close to her, needing to hear more of her story. She see's my interest has been piqued, and continues talking.

"He said the police was after him because of something he was carrying and he couldn't go back to his house because that's the first place they would check. He begged me to house him for a week until things died down."

"So you did?" I don't know when I said it, but now it's out, it sounds accusatory.

"At first I didn't want to, son, but he said he'd give me a lot of money in exchange, so I decided to do it. I made the decision to help him because of the money. I know it's not one of my best moments, but I'm happy I did, because I had you. For that sole reason, I will be forever grateful." She gazes at me with a mixture of adoration and love, and it's all I can do not to take her in my arms and hold on tight.

After awhile, she looks down at her hands, and continues speaking. "As I got into his car, the other prostitutes kept hailing me, saying I was lucky. With shouts of triumph ringing in my ears, your fath--- I mean, Mr. Faseun drove us to my place." Her face takes on a grave look as she recounts what happened several years ago.

"The first three days, he didn't leave the house, neither did he touch me. He gave me two hundred thousand naira for housing him. I remember being shocked and pleasantly surprised because I never made that much in one week, talk more of one day. We used to charge ----"

"Mmmh mmmh!" I clear my throat, because I honestly don't want to know about her sordid past.

Luckily she catches on.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, son. Well, um . . . on the fourth day, he went to take a bath. The bathroom was outside, you see, and so he had to wait in line for his turn. I decided to check the briefcase he carried around with him. He never let it out of his sight. I don't know what happened that morning. Probably he thought I wasn't going to be curious enough to snoop, or he had begun trusting me. Either which way, I wish I could unsee what I saw when I eventually opened it."

This time, my feet make quick work of the ground as I sit beside her and take a hold of her hands. "Please tell me. What did you see?" I'm trying not to be too impatient, but whatever was in that briefcase has fear springing to her eyes.

She looks away and says in a quiet voice. "It was a white powdery substance. I was still contemplating on it when the door to my room opened and your father marched in with anger in his eyes." She begins wringing her fingers in dismay, no doubt reliving the moment.

"I know this is hard for you, but you have to tell me what happened next. Please, mum." She makes me feel helpless when a few errant tears drop from her eyes onto the bed. I wipe them away and she puts herself together and continues speaking.

"He warned me that if I told anyone, he would kill me, but the funny thing was I didn't even know what it was. I felt it wasn't good. How could it if he was on the run from the police. He later explained to me, it was some form of medicine for people. He said it was a breakthrough in the medical field and his colleagues were after him, seeing as he was the one who discovered it."

"THAT'S A LOAD OF HORSE CRAP!" I stand and face her. There's palpable fear in her eyes at my outburst, so I try to tone down the intensity of my words. "I'm sorry for my outburst, but what you saw was either heroin or cocaine. It wasn't any break through drug in the medical field."

"I gathered that from the story you told me about your experience with drugs. Do you think he was a dealer?" She gazes at me with a fearful look pasted solidly on her face.

"Most probably, yes!" I begin pacing, trying to make sense of what she just told me, but my head is a jumbled mess of unfigured puzzles.

"Years later when I saw him at the pharmacy and asked after you, he bragged to me he'd be sending out those drugs to people as medicine?"

"Medicine? But how?" Then suddenly, the puzzle clicks into place as a memory sails into my mind. "When I was working in Mr. Faseun's company, there was a lift only he could access. One day, I became curious as to where it led, so I followed him discreetly. I got into it, and it took me underground and dropped me off in a long dimly-lit passage. I walked to the end of it but didn't see any doors. I hung around in the hopes Mr Faseun would come out, but the more I waited, the more I realised he had disappeared into thin air. Suddenly, I heard a noise. It sounded faintly like a buzzer. When it went off, a man -- two men came out through a door that was camouflaged to look like part of the passage way. They disappeared through another hidden door way and never can out. I left immediately after, but the very next day, I told Mr. Faseun what I saw. You know what he said? That I was hallucinating, so I let it slide, but the very next day, the police raided Deuce manufacturing company. They accused us of selling hard substance drugs like Opium, cocaine and heroin. I personally took them to the lab where we produced the range of drugs that were basically for malaria, typhoid and the common cold. They searched for over an hour, but eventually came up with nothing substantive that could prove their point, so they left. Looks like Mr. Faseun might have been making hard drugs right under my nose and I didn't know even it."

I suddenly know what to do.

I walk to my bedside table, pick up my phone and scroll through my contact list.

"What are you doing?" Mother's fear-filled voice reaches out to me, but I don't reply her.

I'm intent on one thing only.

I click on a contact and dial. It's picked on the second ring, and a man's voice fills my ear. "I've been expecting your call."