The Crabs of Bangui

Chapter Twenty

143 Chapter Twenty T he idyllic life interrupted by the dismissal from the bank continued unabated until one day an enemy broke through Hansel’s defences, or rather, the scales fell from his wife’s eyes, peeling off that veneer of respectability and uxoriousness to expose him as a most unfaithful husband. It began like a joke several months earlier. One day after they had returned from playing at the ropes at the NIRVANA RESORT, Jessica told her mother very casually: “Mummy, we saw two boys at the swing today who looked exactly like us.” The woman smiled. “People do resemble each other,” she told the little girl and went about her work. “How do you know that they resemble you?” The little girl looked disappointed that she could not explain, and even more disappointed that her mother had thrown away her discovery so mindlessly. The following day it was Perdita’s turn. She told her mother about the two children they had met who resembled them very much. “How do you know that they resemble you?” she asked. “I know mummy, I know how my face looks like, I know how my sister’s face looks like too. They really resembled us.” “Did you talk to them?” “Jessica talked to them.” “And what did they say?” “They only laughed. “Do you know them?” “I don’t know where they live, but if I see them I will know.” 144 Linus T. Asong “Did you talk to your dad about them?” “No, daddy was inside the big hall playing with the fishes in the glass box.” “When next you go there and see them, tell your dad, you hear?” “Yes, mummy.” The following Sunday when they returned from NIRVANA RESORT, their mother asked them: “Did you see those your brothers today?” They all denied.. But some three Sundays afterwards, just when the episode was beginning to fade from Marion’s memory the boys reported again having seen the two boys. “Did you tell your daddy?” Marion asked again. “We did, but daddy was just laughing. He even told us to be friendly with the boys.” Thereafter the boys were never heard of again until one day when they were going to the market, Perdita ran up to her mother and told her she had just seen the two boys again. Marion followed her hurriedly but stood at a distance to look at them. The resemblance was remarkable. Her daughters were so absorbed in the two boys that they did not notice that the mother of the children or at least the woman they were walking with, was their father’s finance clerk, the cashier of Crabs and Shells, the woman who had been introduced to her by, she had forgotten who, and for whom she had solicited help from her husband. She refused to entertain the remote thought of a possible infidelity on the part of her husband, which began to steal its way into the deepest recesses of his mind. ...