The transistor radio crackled into life and the crackling voice issued by its speaker has a foreign accent. The crackling of the foreign voice was owing to irregular frequency. The radio station was BBC station. Bade understood English language a bit, few he’d picked from his foreign friend but the one coming out of the speaker he did not at all. Even the little he understood, when he spoke with his Zulu-but-Lagos-bred friend, with so much force, it was as if his gut would spurt out of his mouth when his speech in this foreign language rippled through the air. It could vibrate through the brain and rip the hearing organ off its eardrums, a damage through the passage of sound. He understood that that voice broadcasting was not from any Nigerian radio station he knew. It might be a station from one of the worlds Mbatu had told him about, and he might be. How would he know it was coming from Britain? So, that world might be real. This evening he had incidentally tuned to this station. He was in recumbent posture in his bed, his eyes wide opened, staring thoughtlessly at the ceiling of his room. He was not really listening to the radio but to the confusing thoughts which have pitched their tents in his heart in recent time. With this radio crackling out he couldn’t imagine he was in a global village…global village indeed? A global village fractionalized by colour, creeds and religions.
The voice, crackling, from its speaker was of foreign accent, was broadcasting events all around the world. He had just bought a pair of batteries, trade mark Tiger, fixed it into the transistor radio. The radio was loud and overrode every other sounds and noise that might edge him in, albeit the frequency interference which was quite unpleasant, nevertheless pleasing to him. He finally slept off but it was a fitful slumber this evening. But now, woken up, with eyes wide opened, glaring at the ceiling of his room, he was filled with a feeling he could not understand yet he remembered the meeting between Amope and Mama.
When he walked into the village with his gracefully looking pregnant woman about the noon, he could observe his folks surreptitiously gossiping about them. The looks on their faces had relished assumptions and thoughts: she’s his fiancée; she is beautiful, probably he waited ceaselessly for that beauty; oh, he’d impregnated her; looks she is a gentle, feeble creature; they are good match for each other – Bade is handsome and she is beautiful; but what about the other lady, Anike; maybe he wants to marry two wives; how lucky he is; in fact he has not waited this long for nothing.
He couldn’t take his mind off the voices and images reeling from the past event like film projecting on the screen in cinema house.
Actually, they walked hand in hand. He actually feigned indifference to these folks.
Mama had had good discussion with her which relished the imagination of their future or destiny in him. Mama seemed to love her. She was beautiful and tender-hearted – or her graceful façade seemed too had charmed her. Although, she seemed to have a feeling too, yet she loved her graceful façade and demeanour, but still the weird feeling was still there at play in the background. That grotesque feeling, common to those he had trusted and loved, lived most of his life with, in Mama came with her raspy voice as she called him to a private:
‘That lady is indeed a beauty! You’re just a lucky man, son. You really have eyes on your head.’ She affectionately patted him. He enjoyed this with infantile nods, briskly executed. Mama was still saying, ‘I savour the prospect of the baby being a boy, looks like my husband. Probably, I will have to be rejuvenated, then wait and marry him.’ Both of them laughed low. ‘I am just happy, son. I cannot wait to hear the pattering of tiny feet.’ Bade chuckled low, because Amope was still in the parlour, waiting for him or both of them, and she mustn’t hear them. She might think they were making mockery of her…no, she wouldn’t think that way. She has this atmosphere of self-security which thrived in her humble mien. ‘I am sure the boy will be handsome and you will envy him?’ Mama raised an absurd eyebrow, feigning contempt.
Bade replied, ‘Absolutely, he will. Mama, he will enjoy what I have never enjoyed.’
‘That is good, you know that.’ After a brief moment of quietness transpired between them, she added in a different tone, ‘Em, I pray you are safe.’
‘How do you mean, Mama?’
‘Em, um, I don’t really know. My advice is that you should just be careful.’
‘Mama, I will, but – but…’ He added in a puzzled tone, ‘I know you must have something in mind.’
‘Em, um -’
‘Mama, please I know you have never hidden anything from me before. Tell me, please, what you are sensing about all these.’
‘I…’
