Thursday 9 - Travelling in a bus from Douala to Buea.
I haven’t taken my car to Douala since the bridge collapsed and a barge was installed across the Mungo. As we cruised after crossing the rickety contraption; I keep on hoping that the so-called pontoon will hold for a while, otherwise it will bring shame on the engineers and those who cut the ribbon to inaugurate it.
Anyhow, as we negotiated a bend a policeman leapt into the road, a whistle shrilling between his fat lips, hand raised like a linesman on a football pitch. When our bus rolled to a stop, a fat, pig-eyed monster in khaki, wobbled from the tree shade where he had taken cover from the glare of the sun, beret in hand. You could see he was suffering from being fat.
Our driver looked at the maggot from the corner of his eye. He was unlike those drivers who leap off the steering wheel and dash with a bow to present choko to the armed robbers. He sat tightly in his seat and leaned back comfortably.
The cop, looking more now like the caterpillar of a moth, stopped and wiped his fat face with his beret. He expected the driver to step down and approach him, but that was not the case. The driver wiggled in his seat impatiently and cranked the engine, revved it once and shifted his gears.
The bus rolled forward and the policeman shouted in a fat- filled voice; coarse it was, braying like a pregnant donkey. The driver halted the bus and put his head out of the window.“Patron?” he said and pulled the handbrake lever.
He opened the glove box and rummaged inside, came out with what looked to me like those pieces of paper they call convocation. The driver glanced at me and knew that I knew. He folded it carefully in his hand and waited for the goat to approach. The goat came, a smile creasing his thick face, sweat dripping down his thick round neck.
The driver sent his left hand outside. The policeman, apparently hiding the intended bribe from the sight of his colleagues, leaned his big, round stomach on the panel and grasped the driver’s hand in a friendly shake, squeezed the convocation between his fat fingers and shoved it into his hip pocket.
“Il a bien parler, laisse le passer,” the pig snorted. And the driver pulled the bus away. Our policemen are sometimes such idiots. If you placed money inside the mouth of a hungry lion, they would walk straight into it without minding their heads.
Friday 10 - I tied my heart as they say and got home as early as 4.30 pm. I could see the surprise register on Patience’s face. But her face screwed into a wrinkled ball when I slipped out of the house for a fast tipple before getting back at 7.30. That was record time! We had dinner together and I later lay on the sofa reading The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Patience could not conceal her surprise at my behaviour. I fixed my gaze on the words in novel, but they came to me in a wild jumble, I needed a drink. But I held on. At 9.30, I could not hold any longer. The thirst was simply unbearable.
I excused myself and went out, bought two condoms, I mean sachets of whisky, and re-entered the house. Patience had just finished her shower. She was rubbing herself dry. My eyes connected briefly with her bare rounded buttocks and turned them away to the glass I was holding.
11:00 pm - Patience seemed to be in good moods after a very long time. I couldn’t remember the last time she flashed me a smile as she did now, from under her eyebrows as she reached for the bottle of lotion. The she turned her back to me and bent over to oil her feet. Once again, my eyes strayed and connected with the two mounds behind.
I saw everything and missed a heartbeat. Then she turned round and caressed her breasts, smearing them in a very caressing way. I saw their tips swell. My head of state took the cue and nodded inside my pyjamas. I turned on my side on the sofa to conceal the swelling in my pants and contemplated the night with the glass poised on my lips.
11:20 pm - Patience took me through the most painful ritual I have ever gone through since we got married. There is nothing like waiting for a f…k. I had never experienced the female condom.
So, this night, I watched Patience as she went through the clinical steps of donning their kind of condom. I was lying on the bed all stiff and set for a brisk excursion into the Garden of Eden. I waited until my head of state was throbbing like a Palestinian homemade missile.
First, Patience removed the flimsy rubber sheath from its sachet. Then she rubbed the condom to spread the lubricant and held the ringed neck and squeezed it to remove any air lock. For a heart-splitting moment, I watched Patience as she inserted the condom as far as it could go inside her, holding the thick pages of her bible book open.
I felt my heart plummeting into the depths of my loins. She pushed the condom without twisting it, not crinkling it. Then she climbed on the bed, took position and gave the signal. With a trembling hand, she guided a pulsating head of state into that blissful darkness…
The Collector
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