Train Juju

Presently, he reassembled his family. It made Corporal Nwafanim happy. His three sons, aged five, seven, and eight, returned as he had wished. More importantly, his wife came, too. Where before, when he got off work, he had sat in harsh silence in the scratched armchair, closing his eyes to relive the firm weight of his mother’s breast in his mouth at age seven, or, at other times, slowly pitching back and forth in the seat as he watched the jerk of the clay lamp’s flame on the bare table, now there were the squabbling cries of his little boys to sweeten his evenings. The round-bellied man who had committed adultery with Nwafanim’s wife for four years lived in a tenement on the edge of town. He made a loud scene outside his own door on the night when Nwafanim arrived on his shiny new motorcycle to take back his children. The man moved the frightened boys behind the half-open door, unlatched the gold watch from his wrist, thrust it into his pocket, and stepped out on the fish-patterned doormat to confront Nwafanim. “For your information, I just want my children. I want to put them on the Suzuki I just bought and peacefully go home. Simple as A,B, C,” Nwafanim offered in a firm voice. He eyed the man’s big fist warily, wondering if his rival knew he was a police officer. He did not know the fellow was this large. At the last minute, he had decided to wear this faded T-shirt and cream trousers instead of his uniform, because he planned to intimidate no one here. Now he saw he had been foolish. In a fight, this middle-aged brute would pound him like cassava. The man snickered. He scanned Nwafanim’s angular frame with little interest. “Remember, no one touches the tail of a tiger’s cub, whether the cub be living or dead,” Nwafanim threatened. He screwed the bottom edge of his shirt around a shivering finger. The man punched the wall in defiance. “Your wife left you for me—equation balanced,” he barked. “Look at you. Poor man like you. I’m a confirmed local boy operating on a high level. I visit Lagos in a luxurious bus once every year! Shame on you. You want sufferness to kill these children. May abomination flee!”