KITTEN
In the police station from which the street got its name the inspector’s stomach was telling him it was Lunch time. He wiped his fat face with his handkerchief for the tenth time that afternoon, wishing he could crawl out of his damp skin, he looked up at the pathetic excuse for a ceiling fan that groaned as if it hated its job and sighed in frustration, he couldn’t wait to get out of his office.
“I was on my way out so you would have to make this fast. Who are you and why did you ask to see me?” he asked the man sitting from across his desk.
“I was told you are the man in charge here.”
Trying to hide his impatience the inspector nodded.
“Yes how may I help you?”
“I want to make a confession.”
For a moment the inspector wondered if he looked like a reverend father to the man.
“You do realise this is a police station”
“Yes sir.”
“All right Mr…”
“Patrick Attah.”
“Patrick Attah I am Inspector Gabriel Annum. What is your confession?” he asked trying not to sound impatient. If this was one of those lunatics who usually wandered in here, he was going to make sure the man spent the night in a cell.
“Inspector Gabriel Annum I murdered my wife.”
The ceiling fan creaked and groaned but only succeeded in blowing hot air and for the first time the inspector was not irritated and annoyed by the uselessness of the fan. He was too busy staring at his afternoon visitor like the man had just told him he was an alien. Impatiently he looked down at his desk not actually seeing the files and papers weighing it down. He then laced his fingers together before finally looking up at the small man sitting before him.
“Mr. Patrick Attah.” He said in an even voice.
“Are you on any medication?”
“No sir.”
“Any history of mental illness?”
“No Sir.”
He leaned back in his seat.
“What then are you talking about?”
“If you would permit me I would like to tell you a story.”
He wasn’t sure why he decided to give him listening ears, maybe it was the determined look in the man’s eyes or the earnestness with which he spoke or it could be because it wasn’t everyday someone walked into his office to say that he murdered his wife—for God’s sake, but whatever the reason, Patrick found himself pulling his leather chair closer to the desk, ignoring the heat and shutting the thought of food out of his mind.
“Mr. Patrick, I am all ears.”
Skin as light as a fairy’s, soft as a baby’s’ and smelled as sweet as a garden in full bloom. Large round eyes that was as white as pearl and shimmered like diamonds and if you looked close enough her iris glittered translucently like a dark pool in a night full of stars. High cheek bone, perfect nose and a full mouth that was lush to the touch and she had a killer figure, added to all that was a sense of vulnerability that covered her like a queen’s robe.
It was easy to underestimate Victoria, to think her weak and pampered.
But beneath that was a fighter with unbelievable strength and willpower. When Victoria walked it was with her head held high, she walked so tall that you would think she was six feet tall instead of the five feet that she was. Other women would go for the easy way out in a situation but not Victoria, she would look for the hard way and when she finds it she would conquer it. What Victoria wanted, Victoria got.
‘It’s all about mindset.’ She would say in that musical voice of hers.
‘Believe you can do it, and you will do it.’
This woman saw herself through school and removed her family from the cruel hands of poverty they were known for. She was a caterer and an event planner and because she was as strong and brave as a captain on a ship, as commanding and authoritative as a general with his armies her business became very successful. Everyone wanted her services.
“Wow.” The inspector heard himself saying his voice bringing the man back to the present for he had had a faraway look throughout his narration.
“Yes, wow.” He murmured then went back to his story but this time around staring into the inspector’s eyes.
“It is not like I was not handsome myself in fact women flocked after me so much so that I hardly had to chase after them. They do all the work for me; all I had to do was select the one I wanted. Money was also not my problem for apart from the fact that I am the special adviser to the governor, I also have landed properties that fetch me money. Like my wife I was also very successful.
Still it took me two months to get Victoria to go out on a date with me and even longer to get her to marry me. I am an Igala man you see, so you will understand that it wasn’t easy for me to beg her like that but for some reason I did. She was successful and very beautiful, who wouldn’t want that?
I was thirty when we got married; five years older than her.
At first, all was well. I felt like the luckiest man in the world. Victoria did everything with passion; when she spoke, when she worked and even when we made love it was with passion. Always happy with a contagious laughter that was irresistible; when I went out she followed me to kiss me goodbye. When I got back she was always there to welcome me and I never went hungry for one minute.”
He paused reminiscing.
“Do you know what I used to call her?” he suddenly asked in a small voice and the inspector shook his head. He couldn’t speak for he was mesmerized by the sad smile on Patrick’s face.
“Kitten”
He blinked and found his voice.
“Kitten as in a cat?”
“Yes. She was my kitten for she was always all over me. She could never go to sleep unless she was wrapped in my arms and sometimes at the oddest moment she would walk up to me and kiss my forehead affectionately. She also got along well with my family. She helped my family financially and otherwise without even asking me. When we ran out of food supply she would restock even without telling me, she hardly asked me for anything, her sole purpose was to please me.”
“The perfect wife” The inspector heard himself saying. Again Patrick paused, staring at the inspector for a long time, then as if he had just heard what the inspector had said he nodded.
“Yes the perfect wife. After five years of marriage I came back home one day with ice cream and kept it in the freezer and when Victoria came back and saw it she took it and ate it all up—just as I had expected—for she loved ice cream, coffee flavour. As she devoured it she didn’t think for once that it might have been poisoned.”
Inspector Gabriel Annum for some reason shivered in his skin despite the heat in the room. Sitting still he stared at the man before him for a long time half expecting him to burst out laughing, to say that it was a joke but instead he turned lifeless eyes on him and glowered at him. If the inspector had been a lesser man he would have shrank in his seat from the anger suddenly in the stare but as it was he stood his ground and stared right back without uttering a word. But when Patrick sprang out of his seat like a viper ready for venom transfusion, his arm shot under his desk to grab at the gun hidden there, if Patrick hadn’t turned away from the desk, at the time he did, to pace about, he would have emptied the gun in him. While the inspector tried to push his pounding heart back down his throat he again wondered about the man’s sanity.
“I know what you are thinking, why did I have to kill her? Why?” he demanded coming back to his seat.
“But don’t jump into conclusion for I had my reasons.”
“I didn’t kill Victoria because she never for once in our five years of marriage told me she loved me, no though I desperately wanted to hear those words from her. I didn’t kill Victoria because she couldn’t bear me children, yes she was barren, and the doctors had said she was incapable of giving birth. It was because for some reason I was...intimidated, afraid even, of her, of the opinions she always had in abundance, of her strength, of her willpower, of her stamina, of her independence. You will never tell Victoria to sit down without her asking you why. You will never say Victoria don’t go to this place without her asking you why and even if you manage to give her a good reason she would find a way to convince you to do as she pleased. When arguing she was always right because she would continue to pour out reasons so much so that you would have no choice but to agree with her, on the rare occasions when I won an argument I used to celebrate. Financially she was independent, if I said I wasn’t going to get her something she would get it for herself, if I told my family members I wasn’t going to do something for them she would go ahead and do it for them.
Understand with him maybe he doesn’t have the money
Every day I felt suffocated by her and she seemed oblivious of my predicament, moving about like a goddamn happiness machine. She reminded me too much of my mother, whose one shout sent my father scurrying for cover. Her wish was his command and she never for once stopped to consider what he wanted. His opinion never mattered and he could never tell her what to do and like a vegetable my father lived under the dominating and formidable shadow of my mother until death had mercy on him and took him away. So I told her to quit her business, sell it! But again she wanted reasons, reasons I didn’t have. She was my wife! Couldn’t she just do as I said?”
The inspector could only gape at him.
“I secretly derived pleasure from hearing her cry in the bathroom every night because of the hell my mother gave her. She would come to our home with her friends and insult her, calling her a barren. When she cried I felt good because then I knew she also had a weakness, she was weak after all, not untouchable. I killed her because I was afraid she would turn into my mother. I killed her because I didn’t want to wake up one day and see myself in my father’s shoes.”
“She was a barren, I told myself. She doesn’t even love you.”
Looking aghast the inspector wondered out loud.
“Why didn’t you just divorce her?”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t look her in the face and tell her to pack her things and leave my house for despite everything she was a kind person.”
“So to you the best thing was to kill her.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me something, if you succeeded in killing her in cold blood without being caught then why are you here?”
“While she was down stairs in the dinning eating the poisoned ice cream I was in our bedroom pacing, waiting patiently for her to die. It was going to take some time but not too long, so I waited and waited my heart pounding not with fear but with excitement. I was finally going to be rid of her.
Excuse me boss you have a text message
“It was her phone and because I had always hated that message tone and because I felt she was never going to read the text since she would soon join the dead anyways, I decided to read it for her.”
By now tears were streaming down his face as the inspector studied him.
“It was Antonia her nosy friend, I never liked her.”
With that he repeated the text he had seen on that fatefully day, a message now permanently imprinted in his brain.
Are you insane? How can you sell your company, after all the sweat and blood you have poured into it—and to your number one competitors for that matter? God will punish that husband of yours, I knew you shouldn’t have married him—the good for nothing bastard. If only he knew he was the one who was incapable of having children, if only he knew you were hiding it from him because you didn’t want to make him feel like he was not a man. All the suffering and humiliation you get from people and that his witch of a mother, he still has the guts to tell you not to work. Babe why haven’t you been picking your calls? Please call me the second you get this message, over my dead body will you sacrifice your business for him!
A graveyard was noisy compared to the silence that settled in the room when he finished.
“I was numb with shock.” He said in a small voice, his voice strangled with pain, confusion and anger contorting his face.
“I kept reading and rereading the message and yet I couldn’t believe it. Then I remembered the ice cream. The woman who had given me the powder said if a child should accidentally put it in their mouth that they should give them palm oil before rushing the child to the hospital. She thought I was using it for rats. Trembling and nauseous I ran down stairs to the dining but she wasn’t there it was then I heard her car, I rushed into the kitchen grabbed the can of oil and ran after the car. She drove out of the gate and I kept screaming her name, waving at her.”
He paused for a long time staring blankly into space as he relieved the moment.
Victoria.
Victoria!
Victoria wait, please, stop!
“For five minutes I was running after the car.” At this stage the inspector had to strain his ears to hear what Patrick was saying.
“But it felt like ages, then the car started swerving going off road until she collided into a tree. Seconds later I got to her and her head was resting on the steering. I managed to get the seat belt off her and laid her on the floor cradling her head in my arms, blood was already pouring out of her mouth—and I knew I was too late.”
Please wake up, please.
Patrick?
Victoria.
Something is wrong with my s-stoma-ch
I’m so sorry.
Ice cream, tell mother that I f-forgive her.
“She thought your mother poisoned her?”
“Yes.”
Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you tell me I was the cause of our childlessness.
I didn’t want-t-to trou-ble you, so I told the doctor not to tell you.
Jesus all these years?
I’m sorry.
And your business?
I sold it-just like-ah-you-wanted.”
Why? Why!
To make-y-ou ha-pp-y.
“Oh how I screamed. I called for help but the ever busy highway was suddenly deserted.”
Somebody help me! Please, help.
It’s ok. I-don’t think I w-ill make it.
“When I heard that I knew I had to tell her.”
Victoria I poisoned the ice cream.
“I will never forget the look in her eyes; even in the throes of death she was shocked. For a moment she stopped groaning in pain, stopped vomiting blood and just studied me. I could see that she had trusted me completely—and then she lifted her hand to my face and she smiled. And she had never looked more beautiful.”
I forgive you my husband.
No
It’s ok. Don’t worry about it
I am sorry, so sorry.
Patrick…
Yes
I love you
“Jesus Christ.” The inspector kept repeating as he wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, not sweat this time around but tears, before him Patrick wept like a baby, coughing and chocking.
“She told me she loved me, she told me she loved me. What have I done?”
“If all men killed their wives because of a little insubordination or because every once in a while they feel emasculated by them I don’t think there will be women left in this world. People pray and fast for a good companion, to have the luck of marrying a good wife, my son up till now has refused to get married because of fear of marrying a bad woman….but you, you were given a good wife, a woman full of life and laughter and you killed her? So what if she wasn’t perfect? Nobody in this life is perfect. That’s the beauty of the world for you. If you had sat that woman down and spoken to her, told her what you just told me I’m very sure she would have changed for you, because she loved you and she told you everyday of her life, you just didn’t see it or want to see it. Compared to my wife, your wife was perfection personified, I can’t even remember the last time my wife looked at me with love in her eyes not to talk of kissing me on my forehead…and yet I love her and I know she loves me too because together we face every difficulty life throws at us.” He shook his head in disgust, feeling extremely sorry for the dead Victoria for having the misfortune of meeting this maniac.
“God gave you a good companion a woman who worshipped you, who protected you, who covered your shame for five years taking the humiliation in your place, but what did you do, you self-centred bastard, you killed her, when you could have easily set her free so that she could at least have the chance to meet a man that will value her and appreciate the goodness of her heart, a man that could at least love her in return.”
The inspector paused feeling like he was going to explode in his seat and all the while telling himself to take his mind off the gun under his table. No need stooping to the murderer’s level.
“I am sorry.”
“Sorry for yourself.”
On shaky legs Patrick stood, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“I can’t sleep at night because if I close my eyes I keep seeing the shock in her eyes before she died. I don’t know what else to do.”
“How about you start by getting out of my office”
“What?” he said weakly, exhausted from crying.
“Wait I just confessed to murder.”
“So?”
“So you have to arrest me. It is against the law to take a life.” He said becoming desperate
“You want me to arrest you in other to ease your conscience? You think that is enough punishment? Well it is not and I am not going to give you the pleasure of throwing you in jail, never. Go and let her ghost haunt you, go and die a slow death. God forgive me but as far as I am concerned I didn’t hear anything today. Out of my office I am late for lunch.”
Makurdi as usual was as hot as a woman’s oven the sun beat down mercilessly on the few who dared to walk the streets. The afternoon was dull and eventless, shop owners could be seen sitting in front of their shops fanning themselves with old newspapers or handkerchiefs gossiping with neighbours and hoping for customers. Once in a while a motorist would speed by or a car would blast its horn disturbing the quiet of the afternoon. Sales girls in restaurants cushioned their heads with their arms on the table as they dozed in boredom while others simply played games on their phones. At the bank customers queued at the ATM cursing at each other or the hated sun. At the hair salon opposite the banks a woman fanned her sleeping son while her tummy rumbled. It was almost past lunch time.
Coming out of the police station from which the street got its name, the red eyed man walked down the road feeling like the weight of the world had been placed on his shoulder. He had committed murder and even the law had turned its back on him. He shuddered at the thought of going back to the house without his kitten. No one to welcome him in with a kiss, no one to cuddle with, no one to fill his home with laughter, no one to argue with him, no one to shield him from the gossip of the world and no one to love him unconditionally.
I forgive you my husband.
I love you.
The screams of shop owners, sales girls, customers who were no longer on the queue at the ATM and the woman who was fanning her child shattered the silence of the afternoon. Birds in trees disturbed by the noise, protested as they flew away angrily, women cried and dogs barked in warning but he was oblivious; Oblivious of the shouts of warning, oblivious of the startled cry of the birds, oblivious of the truck speeding towards him until it was too late.
By the time he realized he had walked into the middle of the road the truck was upon him and the last thing he saw was his wife’s face smiling at him.
I forgive you my husband.
***story by Empressamin, Graduate of ABU Zaria**
*YOU MIGHT not KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNTIL YOU LOOE IT. THEREFORE CHERISH wHAT YOU HAVE. CHERISH THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU AND NEVER COMPARE ANYONE OR TRY TO MOULD ANYONE TO FIT YOUR SPEC.*
Hope you enjoyed this wonderful piece and was able to learn something. Till we meet again. Don't forget to drop your comments and suggesting
Always remember "you can preach a better gospel with the way you live your life than with your lips"
