Unwholesome Past

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

‘So how much will you take?’

‘A thousand naira per subject. No more, no less.’

‘But that’s too much! How much do you think we are given?’ We have to register these candidates, book them and all.’

‘Do you agree with my terms or not?’

“Please, manage eight hundred naira plus transport fare.’

It was during the rainy season in a West African country called Nigeria. The place was Ilaro situated in the South West geopolitical zone of the country. In the depth of this city lay a barely developed school. The roads which led to the school were muddy and harboured a number of estuaries.

Mabel, a girl in her mid-teens sat facing the administrator of the school as they made bargains. She had actually been waiting for an opportunity like this. An opportunity to make some money. But she had never imagined it would turn out to be of this sort. During her school days, she had represented her school in a competition where she had performed excellently. It was there that she first met this man she was now facing. Some days after the competition, he surprising showed up at her school at Iyana Ipaja and requested an interview which he was granted. It was no longer a surprise then that when she applied to join his writing club, he willingly admitted her. Life as it used to be changed for her barely months ago after her certificate examination. She suddenly realised she needed so many things. For a girl her age, it was rather difficult for her to cope with the fact that she had few clothes. To think of how embarrassed she was to find that she was the only one putting on the school uniform to the Saturday lesson organised by Jide, an ex-student. And why was that? Obviously, there was no suitable cloth for the occasion. She had had to pretend she didn’t know they were supposed to be on ‘mufti’. And that pretense too was so obvious! She had felt even more out of place when she saw Selina and Bose whispering to each other. When she asked Selina about it on their way home, Selina had said they were discussing how very unsure Jide was about what he was teaching. Nobody had had to tell her for her to know that that was a hastily framed lie. The kind of lies people called white because you could see through them. For God’s sake, Jide was even more confident than the President himself! Well, she just shrugged. She didn’t say anything. As everyone would expect, she forgot the incident almost immediately. Or maybe her mind was preoccupied by thoughts of the forthcoming examination. Ironically, after the final exams, when she was thinking about it all, the incident had come to the forefront of her mind. ‘I need to get clothes,’ she told herself quietly as she looked through the window into the dirty street one evening. How she was going to get them became a problem because she was from a poor family. Her family was too poor. Weeks rolled into months and she decided that the only way she could get them was to work. Working was one thing she could not do at her age. She was too young and nobody would even employ her. All the same, she needed to make some money. The answer came two days ago when this man called her to tell her that he had been searching for her everywhere. At that statement, she had felt a glow of pride spread through her. A whole principal searching for her? She didn’t say anything and he went on to tell her that he needed her to help him write an examination for a candidate that won’t be coming to the examination hall. Sensing the opportunity she had been waiting for, she promised to be in his office in two days’ time. She was so excited that her mother did not stop her.

This morning, she had taken her bath hastily, had had a cursory breakfast and had made the journey down here.

GOD pardons like a mother, who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.

Henry Beecher