"NO QUALMS"

“NO QUALMS”

I have no qualms with the incident in the story you are about to hear. I will try my maturely best to tell it as it happened. I am not all that outsider in the story because it happened in my immediate family. The incident happened in Onitsha the commercial city of Anambra state, just three years ago. My family is the type that people refer to as ideal family. The cogs that the family rotates on were well engaged and were rotating perfectly well. When and where the cog began to have problem that, I and my siblings did not notice, none of us can tell.

I have what you will call ideal parents. Those types that read you like books. Before you open your mouth, they knew what you will say, if you don’t open them, they knew what you are thinking. Those type of parents that provide food, pay school fees and cloth you decently. I could not have prayed or dreamed of parents more interesting and exciting like the ones heaven gave me. They brought us up in a Godly way.

My parents were both business people just like other families in Onitsha. They leave in the morning around nine and return around five in the evening. Both of them stay in one shop, I never heard of any complaining about the other’s absence. My dad is a member of about two different societies in the church and my mum was into many bodies in the church. All of us the kids belong to all youth bodies in the church. She was the head of many and even secretary to few. Because she can read and write to some extent, she was better educationally to compare with the mostly illiterate women in the church.

My mum organized our family in such a way that we say group prayers both in the night and morning. That was how we the kids mastered most of the prayers even before we finished primary school. You can see how deep my parents were in church activities. My father in the other hand was also active in village activities and that was how my brothers came to master our culture well too. I was born some twenty years ago and I happen to be the third child of my parents, which means two elder and two younger siblings for we are five in the family. It equally means that I was about seventeen years when this incident happened, so what I am writing, I witnessed very well. Enough of my family headache; let me introduce to you the other party in this incident.

Four years ago, this guy that goes by the name Marcel came to Onitsha. He is a staff of D.H.L Company in old market road in Onitsha here. I think he was transferred from their firm in western state. He was of average height that suits his weight perfectly okay. This guy cannot be said to be rich but he is okay financially from what I can see. He is about thirty-four or five, I am not sure. He was living in a street not far from ours and he will be said to be regular guy. Does his things quietly, and attends Sunday services in our church. In reminiscence, I strongly believe that he is one of those creatures some refers to as “slow poison”. When he came into our life, I was in class five secondary school and my elder sister he was interested in was in second year in university. Whether he visits her in school, I never heard any story like that. All I knew was that he penetrated our family through our youngest sibling Joe. He was around thirteen years then. According to Joe, he said that he was teaching them ‘tai chi’; Chinese exercise. If he has been to china before, no one knows. He uses Sunday evening to go to church to teach the youths the importance of exercise to healthy living. After the exercise, some of the youths will follow him “Brother Marcel” as they call him to his house to play video games and clean his house for small pay. From staying late some evenings in this Marcel’s house that my immediate younger brother has to go looking for Joe to bring him home. When no one went looking for him, especially when schools were on breaks; this brother Marcel will bring him home himself. From bringing Joe home, he graduated to knowing my parents, knowing me too; and of course my elder sister. Whether he was friendly to the other families of the boys that visit him with Joe, I don’t know. Whether he visits their families like he does to ours, I equally don’t know. All I know was that Marcel soon started talking to my sister, and visiting our family now for her sake whenever she is on holiday. He soon began talking about marriage with my parents and my sister who was visibly entranced by that smooth operator did not hesitate to consent to his request. That was how Marcel became my in-law. My mum started now to visiting his house even on ordinary day as his prospective mother in-law and was helping him to buy all the kitchen utensil and my sister will return from school often and went straight to the man house not minding that he has not done any of the traditional ceremony required by culture before he will be regarded as the bono fide owner of my sister. For one reason or the other, my mother kept on finding her way into Marcel’s flat. Atimes, he will go to my father’s shop to tell my mother to accompany her to the market to help him in buying one thing or another. When he finally did all the ceremony required by tradition and church wedding was fixed, the wedding gowns bought, all the wedding dresses both for my family and his, everything was set. When the D-day finally arrived, hall was booked, priest consulted; and it was approaching the time to go to the church were some guest were waiting already. My sister went looking for her husband who was supposed to be the one going around to make sure all were set to go. As she came near visitors’ room, she heard the voice of our mother whom she thought was in the church with other guest saying: “make it a worthy send off quickie, for there won’t be any again after this”. As she peeps inside the room, she saw my mother and Marcel groping and kissing each other passionately. She stood there for about three minutes without any of them noticing her and she quietly turned around and went back to our father’s house without telling anyone what happened and those in the church, including the priest were left waiting. She was later found in our family house and the only answer she had for anyone that asked for explanation was that she heard God’s voice telling her to cancel the wedding for it would have been ungodly to separate what God has joined together after the wedding.