I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page B

good money. Without looking at me, they walked straight out of the house. I followed like an ass.
    ‘Ola . . .’ I called. ‘Ola.’
    She did not even look my way. Any passerby could have easily mistaken me for a schizophrenic conversing with invisible KGB agents.
    ‘Ola, please just give me a bit more time.’
    With me lurking at her side, they stood by the main road and hailed a passing okada .
    ‘Empire Hotel!’ the termagant shouted.
    The daredevil driver did a maniacal U-turn and stopped with his engine still running. Ola climbed on as close to the driver as was physically possible, leaving just enough space for the termagant. When the driver had perceived that they had settled as comfortably as the laws of space would allow, he revved his engine and zoomed off.

Nine
    It could have been the sorrowful eyes that she saw.
    It could have been the gloomy aura that she perceived.
    Whatever it was, as soon as I walked into the hospital with my father’s provisions, my mother knew that darkness had befallen her opara.
    ‘Kings . . . Kings . . .’ she whispered anxiously and jumped up. ‘What happened? What’s the matter?’
    It felt as if a gallon of 2,2,4-trimethylpentane had been pumped into my heart and set alight with a stick of match.
    ‘Ola . . . Ola . . .’
    When I was a child, we had watched a documentary on television about an East African tribe who spoke with clicks and gargles instead of real words. I used to imitate their chatter to amuse Godfrey and Eugene. Now I appeared to be talking the same language, the only difference being that I was not doing it to amuse anybody.
    ‘Kings, it’s OK,’ my mother interrupted. ‘Calm down, calm down.’
    She led me to the second chair and held me against her chest. I closed my eyes and wept - softly, at first, then louder, with my head and shoulders quaking.
    ‘Kings,’ she said gently, after she had allowed me to cry for a while.
    I sniffled.
    ‘Kings, look up.’
    I wiped my eyes and obeyed. I did not look her directly in the face.
    ‘Kings, what happened with Ola?’
    I narrated everything. I mentioned the trip to her school and the visit to her mother, not forgetting the termagant and the Dolce &
    Gabbana wristwatch. From time to time, my mother glanced in my father’s direction, probably to check if my voice was bothering him.
    ‘Mummy, I don’t know what to do.’
    I looked at her. She did not say anything. Pain was scrawled all over her face.
    ‘I don’t think I can live without Ola.’
    ‘Kings. Kings, if she doesn’t want you because you’re going through hard times, then she doesn’t deserve you. Any girl that—’
    ‘Mummy, what can I do?’ I cut in. I was not interested in grammar and grand philosophy.
    ‘Kings, I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but I don’t think you deserve the way she’s just treated you. If she can do this now, then—’
    ‘I think I should go and talk to her mother again. This is not like Ola at all. I’m sure—’
    ‘Kings . . . Kings . . .’
    ‘If I can just convince—’
    ‘Kings,’ she said firmly, ‘I don’t think you should bother. That stupid woman already treated you like a scrap of paper.’
    My mother’s advice was definitely biased. She was not a fan of Ola’s mother. She claimed that the woman had seen her in the market one time and pretended as if she did not know her.
    ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ she had said of the incident. ‘I’m just telling you for the sake of telling you, that’s all.’
    Yet she had narrated the same story to my father later that evening and to Aunty Dimma several weeks later.
    ‘But how do you know she saw you?’ Aunty Dimma asked.
    That was the same question I had asked.
    ‘She saw me,’ my mother insisted. ‘I even called out to her and she just gave me a cold smile and kept going.’
    That was the same answer my mother had given me.
    ‘How do you know she recognised you?’
    ‘Is it not the same woman who came to this