Ucheoma Onwuntuebe
Wedding Guests
This is what Esomchi told us: Her account officer at Keystone Bank was getting married on March 15. He needed girls, trustworthy girls to pick the money guests would spray on the couple as they danced during the reception. Not thieving girls. Not girls who would stuff the naira notes into their brassieres when they thought no one was looking. He’d prefer if the girls were pretty. That way, they would blend in with the overall aesthetics of the occasion. In the end, if they behaved themselves, a handsome compensation awaited them.
However, it was entirely Esomchi’s guess, by way of her usual exaggeration, when she added that the bride could use those same girls for her bridal shower photoshoot. We didn’t know then she was lying.
“The bride would dress us in pink negligees and flower crowns at no cost,” she said. “And since this is a society wedding, there will be iPhones for souvenirs. There is no way we would leave the venue without upgrading our phones.”
So, in brief, we were going to a wedding and returning richer.
When we asked Esomchi how to send our measurements for our negligees, where we would sleep if we arrived a day before the event, and who would pay our transport fare from Uturu to Umuahia, she said, “Ah ah, what’s with all these cross-questioning? I’ve got it all covered. Everything has been provided for. All we need to do is show up.”
We weren’t convinced. Esomchi was a jonser. Follow her loud mouth and you’d land in big trouble. But something in us, in me in particular, wanted to believe her. I needed this wedding. I needed it more than any of us.
“You guys worry as if you don’t know me,” she said, reading my thoughts. “Just pack your Sunday best. I can’t have you embarrass me there with this your–” she tugged at my ankle-length dress, “Mary-Amaka gown.” Then she turned to Ada. “Are you coming?”
The three of us were headed for our room in Hostel F. I and Esomchi had spent a miserable afternoon in the bio-chem lab, harvesting saliva into test tubes and testing for the digestion of carbohydrates by salivary amylase. The lab should ideally hold only thirty people but it had been filled with over a hundred sweaty, bored-to-stupor students, breathing down each other’s necks, thanks to our school’s overpopulation. We met Ada along the way, the first-year girl I shared a bunk with, and she joined us on our way back to the hostel.
A long queue of buckets and jerricans formed in front of our hostel. The taps were running and I could smell the stampede and commotion about to begin. Girls in their underwear yelled and shoved the crooks that wouldn’t stay in line. I had no water for that night’s bath and needed to join the charade, but this wedding matter was more urgent.
“So are you girls coming or not?” Esomchi asked again.
I looked at myself, looked at my rickety phone with its bad charging port and swollen battery. “Why not? Count me in.”
Ada shuffled her feet and looked away. Mommy’s girl. She needed to get her parents’ blessings whenever she ventured outside campus. We still tease her about her mother following her to the hostel on her first day and teaching her how to make her bed.
“You know you mustn’t tell your mother everything?” I said. “She is in Onitsha enjoying her life. If you enjoyed yours small, no one would die.”
Ada took a deep breath and kneaded her brow for a second. “I’d come.”
It was revision week and everyone walked with the weight of academic overload, carrying fat textbooks and rechargeable lanterns to night class, eyes swollen from lack of sleep. Besides the lethargy, a spirit of hunger, omnipresent and biting, hovered over campus and inspired petty theft. Cupboards were ripped open and cartons of instant noodles grew wings and flew away. Pots of soup went missing and money disappeared from between the pages of the Bible where the owners tucked them in the hope that the fear of God would ward off thieves. Hunger didn’t spare me. In the middle of a lecture, I would hear my tummy grumble and close my eyes to steady myself for a moment. My need for money was urgent. The courses I had put off registering for all semester now had deadlines in a few days; there were departmental dues I had to pay or else I’d miss my exams.
Calling home was out of the question. My mother’s salary had not been paid for six months and the drugs for my dad’s prostate cancer were drilling a hole in her meagre savings. Even in moments when I overcame my fears and dialled my mother’s number, asking for just a little more pocket money, she did not take it lightly.
“Have you seen all of you in this family?” she’d say, breathing hard into her mouthpiece. “All of you will not kill me. Do this, do that, and that’s why a woman will never grow a moustache.” I’d imagine her stooped by the old kerosene stove in the kitchen, blowing its fire until it gave a blue flame, stirring a pot of soup diluted with water so it could go around, especially for my two brothers who were at the ages where their appetite refused to recognise that our family was facing trying times.
“I will retire in ten years,” my mother continued. “No savings, no house of my own. Yet, you all won’t stop badgering me for money. Am I the first person to send her daughter to university? Why don’t you just kill me, all of you in this family, kill me and let me be the first to die from spending money?” And I would imagine my father within earshot, scratching his head, shifting uncomfortably in front of the television, pretending that the news was more pressing than his daughter’s need for money.
My younger brother Obum was home despite passing JAMB. Having two children in university at the same time would drive my mother to the street with a bowl, begging for alms. Despite her complaints, she would often send me money the next day, the exact amount I asked for. But the guilt of the pain I must have put her through to cough out the money would weigh me down for weeks that I would spend my spoil so sparingly, closing my eyes on an extra plate of food at Padded Restaurant, forgoing meat pie and Fanta at the tuck shops behind the faculty, and drinking garri without groundnut for dinner.
So Esomchi’s offer to pick cash at a society wedding had to be from God, and whatever would make me pass by the opportunity didn’t exist. There were girls for whom this kind of adventure was the norm, the cute girls with long weaves and strong connections. I’d never been asked. I focused on my grades. Fortunately, they were a head above average. Our lecturers never failed to remind us that a degree in Animal and Biological Science was already useless. Nigerians haven’t fed themselves and you spend four years studying animals? Good grades were our only lifelines in the job market. You could land yourself in banking or telecommunications if you were lucky. I had wanted to study medicine. Everyone believed I had the brains of a doctor. But there were a million hurdles to cross, lots of university staff who demanded brown envelopes slipped to them under tables. My mother would need to steal to afford the bribes to secure me a spot for medicine, so we settled for ABS.
***
I have only seen Esomchi’s account officer once. That day, I followed Esomchi to the bank because the ATMs on campus weren’t dispensing. When we arrived, the banking hall was a riotous marketplace. The cashiers mopped sweat from their foreheads and barked at the throng of students who refused to maintain a single file. Esomchi’s account officer, a stout man with a surprisingly quick gait, spotted us and tilted his head towards his small office. He served us chilled soft drinks from a tiny fridge by the corner, took Esomchi’s withdrawal slip and reappeared with the money she needed. We stayed a little while in his office to charge our phones, and all the time, he and Esomchi winked at each other and talked in code as I pretended to watch Amanpour interviewing our incoherent president.
Esomchi went to the bank often; someone always sent her money. An uncle abroad, a lost but found cousin whom her father forbade her from speaking to, a strange man she met in the bus park who had dropped his wife off but on sighting Esomchi, forfeited his journey homeward to drive her to school. I went to the ATM with her because I was sure of a meal afterwards, I was sure of the occasional money she lent me without asking for a payback. She never rubbed her magnanimity in. She had the fond habit of holding my hand when we walked, and at the bend-down-select boutique we frequented, where vendors dangled secondhand clothes in our faces, she bought clothes for me. When I complained to her about my mother’s frugality, she would squeeze my shoulders and say, “Nneka, I understand.”
But there were days I wanted to be alone, to complete an assignment, to study for a test, and she’d come pleading, asking me to follow her somewhere. I did not know then how to refuse her. It was hard to refuse Esomchi. Not even the wear of her second-hand clothes could hide the attractiveness of her body, an edge she wielded over many girls in school. It was a body that held many advantages and she put it to great use. I found myself doing things for her that I wouldn’t do for anyone, like fetching water for her when she stayed too late in class or in some boy’s room off-campus, bringing in the clothes she spread in the clothesline, helping her write carry-over exams. She had her way with lecturers who told her which chapters to study before a test, course reps who wrote her name on the attendance sheet when she was out of town, SUG officials who gave her free receipts for dues we all paid for and security men who let her into the hostel when it was past midnight. It was easy to do things for Esomchi. She had a way of hugging and thanking you like you just gave her the air she breathed. It was a pure coincidence to have her as a roommate in 300 level, and a privilege to tag along with her. One time, Beatrice, the saucy second-year student in our room, got into a fight with me over who left the door open, letting in a swarm of mosquitoes. Beatrice called me ‘Follow-follow.’ “Who are you without Esomchi? Nneka, I say, who are you?” That hurt and affirmed my insecurity that I was anonymous without Esomchi’s shadow casting a hue on my person. I thought of cutting ties with Esomchi after Beatrice’s insult but our friendship held benefits I was too wise to relinquish.
***
That Friday evening, we packed our small bags and headed to the school park. We traced the conductor’s voice shouting ‘Umuahia, Umuahia, Umuahia’ and entered the Abia Line bus. Esomchi paid the fare for the three of us. Ada was bubbly, huddling us together for selfies. I was suspicious of her joy, the excitement of someone trying too hard to prove her bravery.
As soon as the bus left Uturu, Ada asked for the umpteenth time, “Where are we going to sleep tonight?” Esomchi reassured her yet again that there were many hotel rooms booked for guests like us who had nowhere else to go, guests who knew no one in Umuahia.
Esomchi had wigs and shoes for us. In our bags, we had our best dresses. I stared out of the window as the green foliage sped by. The boy seated in front of me was blasting Keyshia Cole’s “Sent from Heaven” through his headphones and he sang along off-key. I worried for his ears. A woman in the middle row spread a browned handkerchief on her hair, cleared her throat and raised a Christian chorus. Reluctantly, passengers joined in, even the boy had to pause his private party. We caught the fever of her songs as we all sang “Dependable, dependable God.” We called back “Amen” and “Blood of Jesus” to her prayers. When the prayers ceased she began a sermon that she kept going till the bus reached Abia Tower.
When we alighted, Esomchi called her account officer. “Oga, send the address to the hotel. And is there food? My friends and I are hungry.” She ended the call with a chuckle. “When we get to the hotel, one of the groomsmen is taking us to Shoprite!”
I dug out my phone from my bag. Ada’s mother was calling. “Why is your mother calling me?”
“She’s been calling me too,” Ada said, panic rising in her voice. “But I don’t want to pick up. I will call her when we settle down. Where do I tell her I am?”
“You are in school!” Esomchi said. “That’s all she needs to know.”
We chartered a keke to the hotel. At reception, a bored girl with a pen stuck in her wig dialled the account officer and told him his guests had arrived. The receptionist resumed scratching her hair with the pen as she watched a movie where Patience Ozokwor and Nkem Owor were in a heated argument.
The account officer came down with another man, one of the groomsmen, I presumed, and Esomchi made the introductions. “These are my roommates.”
The groomsman counted us with his eyes and said, “Just three girls? Don’t you have other roommates or coursemates?”
The account officer nudged him to be quiet. But the groomsman did not take the cue. “Three girls only?” he stared wide-eyed at the groom. “Guy, you told us your girl will deliver. Mandem are on their way. This doesn’t make sense.”
“You girls said you’re hungry?” the groom asked quickly. “Follow my guy, he’s going to Shoprite.”
“Where do we drop our bags?” I asked.
“Come with me,” the groomsman said. He led us to a tight room full of men, maybe seven of them. There were bottles of whiskey and red plastic cups littered on the floor, and the air was heavy with the smell of cigarettes. Some of the men were bare-chested, and some had on their singlets and boxers. As we walked in with our little bags and good behaviour, there was a chuckle here, a catcall there. Someone said something about meat arriving safely, and the men indeed looked like vultures chancing upon rotting spoils in the middle of a lonely road. It didn’t matter to me then; I was used to men behaving in this manner whenever they congregated. Boys did it in school when you walked by their hostel, catcalling and wriggling their tongues at you. I was used to it. So we dropped our bags on the floor, hopped in the car and followed the groomsman to Shoprite.
The groomsman drove roughly, a toothpick in his mouth. Ada shifted in her seat. Her mother was still calling and I knew Ada would jinx things. The groomsman almost came headlong with a keke and he scowled at the old driver. There was something performative about his bearing, this groomsman. The way he wielded his steering wheel, the way he turned up the volume of the radio, the way he tried to make small talk, asking us about school and whatnot. I and Esomchi answered him, but Ada ignored the questions. At the mall, we marched to the food vendors’ stand. I ordered fried rice and chicken with salad and moi-moi. Esomchi ordered the same and added swallow with egusi soup, but Ada, where was Ada? We looked around. She was in a far corner talking on the phone. We made signs at her. Come and order your food. When was the last time you had free food? But she walked towards us crestfallen.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but my cousin is coming to pick me up. I’ll stay at my uncle’s house and we can head back to school together after the wedding.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Esomchi asked. “Do you think you are the only one who has a relative in Umuahia? I can easily call my cousin’s girlfriend and she would pick me up too. Why are you abandoning your friends?”
Even the groomsman’s face clouded and he gave Ada a dirty look. “Nne, I don’t like this your attitude oh. Why are you going away? Stay with your friends.”
“Sorry,” Ada said, “I’d prefer to stay with my relatives.”
I too was unhappy with her. Ada, always chickening out and acting like she’s better than everyone else. I was certain she had called her mother, and the overprotective woman was the brain behind this lame move. Silly Ada. Killjoy Ada.
As we walked to the car, I cornered her and said, “Stay. It’s just for a night. We’ll take pictures, join the bridal shower and enjoy the comfort of a hotel room. It will be fun.”
“I was just about to tell you to join me,” Ada said, holding my hand. “I doubt there’d be rooms for us. Those men look high on something.” I shoved her hand and said no to her offer. I did not want Esomchi to think me a coward, I didn’t want the account officer and the groomsman who had just bought us food to think me ungrateful.
We drove back to the hotel and Ada picked up her bag from the room and left.
“Where is she going to?” the account officer asked Esomchi.
“To suck her mummy’s breast,” Esomchi said, laughing.
But he did not find it funny. “But I promised my wife I’d bring five girls for her bridal shower. Now there are only two of you. Na wah oh.”
We ate our food on the balcony of the hotel room. I asked the groom where our rooms were. Do we get individual rooms or are we sharing?
He looked me over, still angry and asked, “Do you want to sleep now?”
“No,” I said.
“Then chill. At night you will go to your room.”
One of the men with a faded rose tattoo on his chest offered us whiskey mixed with an energy drink. Esomchi gulped hers. I stopped mid-way because it tasted like cough syrup. I had overfed myself and was reeling under the influence of a bloated tummy, dreaming of all the money I’d make tomorrow.
***
We all moved to the poolside. A Camry pulled into the parking lot. A sleek woman whose perfume wafted up to us stepped out. She carried a cooler of food and laid it beside the account officer whom she kissed. Esomchi wiggled up to her, genuflecting, but this time her charms failed. I cringed when she tried harder with her winsome smile, admiring the woman’s hair who recoiled at her touch.
When Esomchi asked about the bridal shower, the bride looked confused. “I never invited you. I have my girls, thank you.” Then the bride waved at the other men and left.
“Oya, where are those babes?” The tattooed groomsman called. “Come and serve this food. Make sure everyone eats enough.”
Esomchi rose to the occasion and I joined her to dish out the food to the men.
One of the groomsmen said, amidst mouthfuls, “Let’s go to a strip club.”
“No,” the groom said. “My wife warned me. I don’t want anyone to have my ears. By the way, more chicks are coming. So kill this strip club talk.”
“Nna, grow some balls,” the groomsman said. “It is too early to let a woman control you.”
The groom paid no mind. He gulped the last drop of his beer, wiped his mouth, and took Esomchi away. And I sat there by myself.
The other men gossiped. “I heard her parents are major distributors for Dangote.”
“The girl even schooled in the UK.”
“Our boy is made for life. Not all these girls that you marry and their parents will say, ‘In-law build a house for us, in-law send our children to school.’”
“Thieves.”
They laughed.
“This marriage thing is an economic strategy. Nonso is smart.”
“But she is too commanding. ‘Nonso, do this, Nonso, do that’.”
“She is older than Nonso.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“I swear to God. Over five years.”
“Hmm, hope she’d be able to give birth, with the way she resembles an old layer chicken.”
They laughed again.
“The money is shacking Nonso. Soon his eyes will clear.”
They caught me listening. “Hey small girl, you are enjoying senior jokes, abi?”
I giggled.
“Fine girl,” the groomsman who took us to Shoprite said, looking me over. “See your fine teeth. You resemble my mother.”
“Abeg leave her,” the one with the bad tattoo said. “She is my wife. For the night.”
“My friend, comot for here,” the other one said. “Do you know how much food I bought for these girls? Baby,” he said, drawing his chair closer to me, “you are my girlfriend for tonight.”
“No oh,” I said, shifting from him. “I have a boyfriend.”
“You have a boyfriend? After you finished eating my food? Henceforth I declare him non-existent. What is your name?”
They all whistled when I said, Nneka. “Nneka the pretty serpent.”
A car pulled into the compound and six girls jumped down. All the men, excluding my newly acquired boyfriend, whooped and danced, rejoicing at the new arrivals. Some of the girls and men were previously acquainted because they flew into each other’s arms and stayed too long in the embrace. The girls were lovely. They must be from the rival campus in Umudike and I felt a twinge of jealousy at how at ease they were, how they drank from the men’s cups and perched on their laps.
“Come let me buy you a drink at the bar,” the groomsman whispered to me.
“I don’t drink alcohol,” I said.
“Shhh,” he looked around. “Don’t let another person hear that. Are you a baby?”
“I have a soft head.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you drink too much.”
At the bar, it was the same girl at the reception. “Give my girlfriend Chapman.”
“So who do you know here?” he asked me after the waiter laid the drinks on our table.
“Esomchi is my coursemate. I followed her.”
“Oh, I remember.” He gulped his beer. “You are very beautiful. How old are you?
“Nineteen.”
“You look sixteen. So fresh. You look like no mosquito has ever bitten you.”
I looked away.
“Why are you forming shy?” He slapped my thigh. “You may not even be as innocent as I think. You look like the one biting mosquitoes.”
I clamped my legs together, afraid to sip my drink. “What do you do?” I needed to change the conversation. “What do you do for a living?”
“Just normal business, buying and selling. Goods from China.”
“For how long now?”
“Six years. I was an apprentice for my uncle before he settled me.”.
It was dark now and he was on his third bottle of beer. I texted Esomchi. I needed to shower and go to bed.
“Who are you chatting with?” the groomsman asked. “Your boyfriend?”
But Esomchi was not responding.
“If you are texting your friend,” the groomsman said, “she’s with the groom. You can’t disturb them. Come, I’ll show you where to sleep.”
He took me to the previous room. One of the bare-chested men had a girl on his lap. My bag was the only thing on the floor, trampled on. Where was Esomchi’s?
“You are worried. No one would kidnap you here.”
He led me to an expansive, empty room, with a widescreen TV blaring music from MTV Base. He slipped the door card into his pocket. “Come back to the bar when you are done with your shower.”
“I don’t want to be seen outside in my nightwear.”
“Okay. Then you can sleep here. Feel relaxed, okay? No one will hurt you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I texted Esomchi. Where are you? I’m in room 312, are you coming?
No reply. I went to bed. Around 2:00 a.m. I heard the door open. It was the groomsman, he joined me in bed. I bolted.
“What is it?” he asked. “You have been acting somehow. Relax, are you not a big girl?” He lay atop me, pinning me down, and he covered my mouth with his. Too moist, his mouth. His grip, firm. But I fought. Not in a coy stop-it-I-like-it way, I fought with all my might. But he was strong. And as we wrestled, he giggled and panted, “Stubborn. Girl. I. Like. Your. Type.”
Then I bit his ear and he jumped off me.
“I don’t want to have sex with you,” I said.
He was silent. Then he turned on the light as if he needed the illumination to read the confusion on my face.
“So why did you come?” he asked. “Why are you here?”
“To pick money,” I said.
He was confused. “Pick money for what?”
“At the reception. When guests spray money at the couple.”
“Are you related to the groom?”
“No. I am Esomchi’s friend.”
“Who is Esomchi?”
“My friend, we came together.”
“Nne, you have to leave my room,” he said, gathering the duvet to hide his bulge. “This was not the arrangement. Do you think I paid for this big room just to babysit you and sing you a lullaby? They told us girls were coming and I thought you knew what this was all about.”
I did not bother asking further questions, I picked up my slippers, unplugged my phone, picked up my toothbrush and wet underwear dripping water on the bathroom floor. I looked around one last time to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything.
It was cold outside and the sounds of crickets rose from the flowerbeds. The water tanks resting on iron scaffoldings were overflowing, and in a dark corner a figure leaned on the wall and in his hands the end of a joint glowed and ebbed.
At the bar, the receptionist was engrossed in another movie. When she saw me, her beady eyes became alert, then concerned. Her shirt was no longer tucked into her narrow trousers and she looked at ease, freed from the duty of waiting on customers. Maybe she sensed trouble in the briskness of my walk, how I looked over my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she said.
“I need to go back to school tomorrow, first thing in the morning. But I don’t have money to find my way.”
She looked at me for a beat. She must be used to this. Lost girls who come to the city and are met with troubles bigger than them. Clueless girls who think random men are safe. She pulled out a drawer and slipped a five-hundred-naira bill into my hand. She pointed to a settee. “You can sleep there.”
I could not sleep. Together we watched another movie. Ini Edo, Emeka Ike and Genevieve Nnaji wrangling a love triangle. At the crack of dawn, I found my way to the park and went back to school. I did not tell Ada when she asked me how the wedding went. When Esomchi returned, she did not speak to me. I did not speak to her either. We avoided each other until exams were over. When we resumed for the next session, she was no longer my roommate, just the popular girl who ran for SUG vice president and won. As for me? I was still always hungry.
Ucheoma Onwuntuebe (she/her) is a Nigerian writer. She is the recipient of a Waasnode Fiction Prize and has held residencies at Yaddo, Art Omi, and the Anderson Center. Her work has appeared in Catapult, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.