Okorie and Ada met at Ama after he had paid her and her mother a visit the previous day. It was in the evening. An evening that was a bit windy and made leaves sing tuneless melancholy music while rustling. Ama was a popular spot in Akoga. Just a bit over one mile from the village square.

With a terrain full of stones of various fascinating shapes, so wonderfully molded by nature, that it was a potential tourist spot. Cool, open and adorned with trees in their hundreds, which provided enough shade. Fresh breeze surprisingly always came from the Ubu stream located behind the trees. Ubu stream held a lot of significance.

Apart from being a source of water for domestic purposes, it also doubled as a spot for sacrificial activities to the gods. That was why any glance was thrown around there would not find it hard to capture big and small-sized earthen pots containing sacrificial materials like red palm oil, local chicken eggs and most times, decayed or decaying remains of dead animals, of which cocks and hens were chiefs.

Fishing was one thing prohibited in the stream.

That was sacrilege as far as the stream was concerned. A lot of goats, sheep, cocks and hens inhabited the surrounding bushes. The untouchables. They were never hunted for the myth surrounding their existence. They were said throughout Akoga to be owned by the gods.

It was equally believed that severe punishment awaited anybody that dared to hunt the animals. Elders of Akoga often told stories of when the stream left its location to drown a man that once hunted a goat within its surroundings and returned. It swept away the man’s entire household, leaving only a wasteland in its destructive wake.

Okorie faced Ada. His lips seemed sealed and some battle raged in his mind. How will I say it? He thought. Will she understand me? He further thought. Okorie apparently lost his guts while trying to envisage the kind of response Ada would come up with. Surely, his pride would be hurt if Ada’s response turned out unfavorable.

“What is it, my brother?” Ada asked with rapt attention, as Okorie picked up his shattered courage. He came unusually closer and playfully tried to cuddle Ada’s shoulders. Ada withdrew quickly and Okorie’s face went dark. The smile he earlier had on, faded. Ada found Okorie’s approach particularly strange. She couldn’t just figure out what Okorie’s stress was as pandemonium raged in her mind.

So many thoughts struck it as she tried in vain to place the rather strange behavior Okorie had put up. The thought of Okorie planning to rape her came and she quickly pushed that aside, as there was nothing hidden about their location, and only a very foolish man would try such an unwholesome thing there.

“Don’t you think you will find happiness in the future with me?” Okorie finally began with a question that eased his mind. This left Ada saddled with the task of trying to understand it. “Won’t you answer my question?” Asked Okorie again as his face lit up, and his confidence returned. Ada gave no answer. But it appeared she was shy. Both stared at each other for seconds. Okorie’s face later broke into a smile.

A smile that spoke his mind and enhanced his courage. Could this girl be kidding? He thought. He wished Ada would understand and pick meanings off his smiles. “Don’t you think it’s time we plan to raise a family?” Okorie finally shed the last load in his mind. Ada froze in astonishment. She took it for a joke at first but had no other option than to talk when it became clear Okorie was serious.

“Why marriage? Why are you telling me this?” Ada inquired with a raging voice. “Why do you want to saddle me with marriage? I have never seen you as my potential husband. I am yet to make my choice!”

“We have been destined for it,” Okorie added.

“Who said so?” Ada’s voice sounded in exasperation.

“It’s the tradition. The rich to the rich and the poor to the poor. We’ve been tied, Ada and nothing will separate us again. Ask your mother! I am sure she will be most glad to explain it to you. My own mother once told me how I was destined to be your husband.”

“I am whose wife?”

“Mine.”

“You can’t be serious!” Ada appeared ugly in anger. Her wild gaze encased Okorie and she really felt like drowning him in the biggest ocean in the world or tearing him to pieces. Ada had wished she were at that moment, a fierce tiger with Okorie at her mercy. “I must let you know that I am disappointed in you,” she thundered. Her lips shook. “You can’t be serious!”

“I have told you the whole truth! The whole reality neither of us can escape!”

“You are the most unreasonable man I’ve ever come across.” Ada’s hands and feet shook. “I am married to no one! I am as free as the air! You are simply not making sense! If whatever you said is a way into marriage, then you must vanish from my world!”

“But… look…” Okorie stammered. Ada would listen no more. She dashed off, all to Okorie’s bewilderment. He, however, resolved not to give up.

“When the termite finishes flying, it surely falls for the toad to eat,” said Okorie, to bolster his confidence.

Ada ran like a wounded antelope that luckily escaped a lion’s ferocious claws. Twice she fell over stones that left her legs bruised. Sweat wetted her body as if it rained. She got back home fully exhausted and tired of her mind. Her short hair was unkempt and the bruises she sustained bled. She dropped on to a mat on the floor and slept off. A ceremony came to Ada in a dream; one in which she was being betrothed to Okorie. “No… No…. No… No one must take away my right to choose,” Ada screamed and woke up, sweat dripping down her face. She then slept off again, ignoring the dream.

The next day’s morning came and Chuka could not help rushing over his breakfast of pounded yam and cold bitter leaf soup. He soon picked up the wooden plates with which he ate and washed his hands. He quickly reached for the hoe and machete and stepped out of the compound after making sure he forgot nothing. Chuka headed for his farm. The morning was bit cool and calm. Branches and leaves had no tune of the wind to dance to. Only birds were busy in the sky, chirping.

Chuka’s yam crops were nearing maturity; a time every farmer paid the closest attention. Chuka was very much mindful of this and knew in addition that even stray goats that wandered about the village posed a great danger to his harvest. There was no threat to his small farm as everything was like he left it the previous day’s evening.

The yam vines securely wound around the stakes. No fallen stakes. Chuka carefully inspected his farm from a spot. He paid particular attention to the yam mounds and began a one-on-one examination. He observed no trace of beetle invasion. This left him glad. His eyes hovered around once more and left him completely satisfied. His maize crops were about hassling and nothing also threatened their well-being.

Then Chuka bent down and began removing little weeds on the verge of establishing their threat. His mind exploded in joy as he did remove the weed, for he knew how much he stood to gain from sales if he recorded a bumpy harvest. He also had the Akoga farmers’ festival in mind. Chuka sat down to sing after working. He sang a song he never did sing before and repeated it.

Come…. Come…

The love of my life…

Come…Come…

When shall we meet?

Never to part at all…

Come…come….

He was about repeating the song for the tenth time when a scream broke into his peace. He was startled. The scream emanated from Ubu stream, which two miles separated from Chuka’s farm. Chuka threw glances around in an effort to locate the source of the scream. Then it came again and louder this time, with a clear female tone. Chuka then knew from the intuition that somebody was in danger. He began the two-mile race to the stream at once.

“Let’s have a look at her body before we get down to work,” said one of two village drunkards already drunk. The other nodded in agreement, as Ada trembled out of fear, which had crept in, engulfing her whole body, with the earthen pot on her head steadily losing balance. Ada’s body was already cold. She made to break free, but both men were already close. Ada’s pot fell off her head and broke, making her scream again.

Both drunkards went for her wrapper. Only Chuka’s sudden appearance saved Ada from being raped. One disgrace she so much dreaded. Chuka panted, his heartbeat being at all-time fast as he stared at Ada, a young woman whose image he averted its tarnishment.

A raped woman in Akoga could not be better than someone down with serious leprosy. Somehow regarded as an outcast no man of Akoga in his right senses would ever marry. Regarded as an unwanted militating beast of burden. As far as Akoga was concerned, rape was a woman’s irreversible ruin. Unless it happened to a woman and no one knew about it.

Both drunkards toddled away at once, and Ada gradually lost the load of fear she had. Her eyes became luminous with interest in the courage exhibited by her rescuer at the same time. There must be something very special about this young man, Ada thought, as her stare hovered over Chuka’s masculine stature. Chuka’s did the same on her feminine features. Quick glances were subsequently exchanged as their eyes said thousands of things their mouths could not fetch words for. Was it love? It seemed so, but only time would be able to tell. Their hearts throbbed hard and rattled like sacred drums of doom for appeasing some blood-sucking spirits.

“I am very grateful,” Ada finally murmured, her eyes now on the broken pot. Chuka still unable to find words, stood, as countless thoughts struck his mind.

“I was thinking”, Chuka began, finally breaking his silence, “of where you belong.” Then a smile appeared and stood on his face.

“What a thought,” Ada replied. “This is Akoga, Where I come from.”

“Not that,” said Chuka. “I mean the daughter of whom you are.”

“Amanze,” Ada replied again as quick thought of why Chuka wanted to know her father slipped into her mind.

“Amanze,” Chuka reiterated the name out of consternation that surged into him. Ada was not the kind of girl he expected to be embroiled in a situation that almost led her to be a victim of despicable rape. A rich man’s daughter! Chuka was wrong. Those drunkards had no time in this world whatsoever asking a woman if she was from a rich or poor home before descending on her with their horrendous act. Any prey that came in handy was always good enough for them. They were even bold enough to want to attempt rape at Ubu stream. That would have been at their peril anyway. The gods would have chopped off their private parts.

“He is no more,” said Ada.

“Yes, I knew when his death struck. Who wouldn’t have known? Death of the rich is an explosion in the whole land. Only the poor die relatively unheard.” Chuka laughed as he finished his speech and looked straight into Ada’s eyes and went on. “And you are…” Ada was fast enough to pre-empt the next question from Chuka before he could actually assemble words for that. “My parents named me Ada,” she answered. “Your father’s name is Iweka. I know where he lives. I see you go to the farm with hoes hanging down your shoulders and you must be….”

“I am Chuka.” How come she knew my father before now, and even my home thought Chuka. He couldn’t quite believe that a rich man’s daughter could find time to even notice a poor lonely man like his father. It was clear to Chuka that he was not dreaming, but it seemed so. Ada thanked Chuka for saving her. She was very glad and knew that she would stop at nothing to reciprocate the important assistance she received. There was a stirring in Chuka as he parted ways with Ada. She had suddenly ignited a passion in him. A passion to always want to set his eyes on her.

Time elapsed and Chuka stood still, as his mind became a prisoner of so many thoughts of what to do. Then he could help it no more. He turned back, but Ada being a fast walker, had put quite a distance between them. He wailed her name and ran in her direction. Any observer would have betted with his life that Chuka’s speed even surpassed Canadian Ben Johnson’s drug-inspired winning speed in the Seoul Olympics.

Ada turned back instantly to behold an on-coming masculine figure that threw some feeling of delight into her. Some kind of feeling that told her it was getting to the time she shared her life and established intimacies with a man. The Chuka she saw coming wasn’t bad for such a man. Ada was struck by his confidence, his drive, inner strength and outspokeness.

Though Chuka’s chin was full of unkempt hair that told long tales of a long time he last shaved, but that was the handsomeness that spread out like river tributaries all around Ada’s heart. She was falling. But it would not be a cultured woman, but a prostitute that would first make her feelings known to a man in Akoga.

“Your pot!” Chuka screamed and stopped galloping forward in the manner a stallion would. “I should mend it for you?” Ada only smiled sweetly and shrugged her shoulders in a way that suggested Chuka was at liberty to do whatever he wished with the pot. She turned and began walking away again. The distance between her and Chuka kept widening once again. Some funny uneasiness arose like wildfire inside Chuka, as this happened. It was like the best thing life could offer him was passing him by. He would not take it. He stealthily followed Ada at a distance until he got to know where she lived. Then he found some fulfilment and went back home with the kind of joy a hunter usually felt after a successful trophy hunt. Chuka had discovered the abode of a prize some feelings inside told him was his.

Longings Of A Caged Love: Watch Out For Part 4