Stranger in his Homeland

Chapter Twenty-Six

203 Chapter Twenty-Six A ntony did not go straight to his house. He needed somebody to be present with him when he met Vicky. Such a person was Eru. He went to his office but he was absent. He proceeded to his house but he was still not there. Now that he was forced to talk to Vicky himself he decided to steel his spirits with a bottle of beer. When he arrived at his own house he found Eru. He was sitting with Vicky in the parlour and she appeared to be explaining something to him in a most bereaved mood. “I am just from your office, bo Eru. I went to your house too.” “The office is not the right place to find me,” Eru said laughing. “I go there only for roll-call in the morning. Then without wasting any time he said: “Bo, sit down.” There was a seriousness in his tone which struck Antony as unusual for he had never known Eru to be capable of such emotions. “What bo?” Antony sat down. “Bo, your wife was just telling me something here which I think we should not allow to go beyond this point.” He spoke as though he had heard the story of the V.D for the first time from Vicky. “What did she tell you?” Antony’s voice was calm and he was not looking at Vicky at all. On her part, she was staring blankly at him, her eyes swollen and red from excessive weeping and her cheeks lined with caked tears. Eru did not answer him directly. He instead said: “Antony, bo, I think this is the wrongest moment to do anything to pain Vicky. I do not need to mention what has already happened to her in the family…” “I do not insist that you should do so either,” Antony said. “Fine. Vicky tells me bo, as a family friend, and as the only one who can share in the secrets of this house, that the doctor has discovered this morning that she had V.D. and so you have it as a 204 Linus T. Asong result of contact with her as your wife. She was saying that you really knew of it since yesterday but did not mention anything to her. Instead you began to do I don’t know what.” The card which Vicky had brought from the hospital was in Eru’s hand as he spoke. When Antony leaned towards it with curiosity he held it for him to read. Antony took it and looked at it for a very long time. Then he said with biting irony: “It is my fault, bo Eru. I discovered that she had gonorrhoea only yesterday, but forgot to tell her. She has had the plague all her life but was never anxious to let me know. It was indeed my fault…” “She might never have known that she had it bo I …” “How could she? Everybody has something to hide Eru…” “That’s true Antony. But it doesn’t mean that whatever is in you, you are hiding it.” Antony tried to say something but bitterness choked his throat. Eru went on: “Vicky is begging you. She is pleading bo, that you forgive her and take her back as before.” Antony’s smouldering anger burst into flames. Shooting up from where he had been sitting he went up to Vicky and asked: “What exactly do you mean?” “Tony you have been too cold towards me since yesterday, she said in between sobs. “Since you heard it.” “Toonneeyyyyuuu habb bing tuu collldd towaad mee.” Antony repeated the words insultingly. “She says she does not in the name of God Almighty know how it ever came about that…” “Let her leave innocent God alone. If she had forgotten let her listen to me remind her.” He knelt down in front of her on one knee. Paralysed with shame and guilt and the very anger in his voice, Vicky could not save herself further embarrassment by going out of the house. “My most blessed innocent Vicky, let us face facts. People do not get gonorrhoea by waving to those who have the disease, or by drinking the same tap water, attending the same church or the same market. It is a disease that spreads through serious contact. And by serious contact here I mean that if a man who has it has sexual intercourse with a woman she will automatically...