French Dungeon

Aaron Waaki is my village man. He was living with his parents in Onitsha city the last time I saw him. His dad, a man in his middle fifties was managing a garment shop in the outskirts of the popular market in the city. The market, is the most famous and biggest in West Africa.

How true that assertion is, I can’t voucher. But I suspect there must have been elements of truth in that assertion. In 70s and 80s, almost all the west African nations sees the market as source of their own market supplies. To think that 65percent of everything in that market came from abroad would tell you how backwards the continent must have been. 

Nigerians was the only people with resources and foresight to enter plane then to Europe and Asia for goods. Aaron was in his late teens. I don’t recall if he finished his secondary School education or not before joining his father in his garment shop. He was. Wait a minute, why do I kept referring to him as was as if he is dead or something. He is not. He was made scarce for years by white man government in the Western world. 

So, it’s actually the case of out of sight but not out of mind. Well, let continue with the tale. You would understand more as the tale unfurl. Like I have said, he was a teenager when he started appearing in his father’s shop and I have been to that shop twice when I was residing in that city.

Aaron must have done his arithmetic well and knew that with that shop, there is no escaping poverty. He must have kept the dream of going abroad to himself for no one ever heard anything in that regards from him or his parents. Maybe he knew that his parents would not have supported. They were two only. His younger brother was still in school them. 

Worrying culture must have been another reason of his for keeping mute on the plan. Parents don’t wants their kids out of their sights. Maybe they believed that seeing them everyday must have been reason heaven still keep them alive.

Did I tell you that whenever anyone especially youths wants to travel abroad, families would start behaving as if the person is heading to his grave. Instead of jubilation, what you would see is mourning, like staging burial ceremony. That must have been reason Aaron kept his plans secret while diligently saving and acquiring all the papers needed. 

When you’re poor, people tends to believe that it touches the brain. So, to even knew where to get those papers was surprising to many. Abroad doesn’t enter the minds of those rated as poor. Having money for tickets is not a poor man’s preoccupation but how to see each day through. I recalled entering their shop one harmattan morning and saw his dad taking stock of his goods. I believe that that is what he would have done in the evening before closing. So, I decided to help. The poor man had been counting and recounting and kept jumbling his count.

 “ Can I help?” I offered.

“ No, no. What do you want to buy, why suffer yourself for me. I will eventually get the better of it. It is always like this”

“I don’t mind. I am not in a hast. I believe I can do better than you”

“ Okay, if you persist”

I went to work, counting all the rolls of garments as there were packed. They were about three hundred bales of which about half was supplied to him on credit or rather on arrangements. Most heavy dealers don’t have enough space in their shops and warehouse and what they want stored usually ends up in the stores like that of Aaron’s father.

Most of the customers he had was people like me. Sentimental buyers. There are hundreds of shops inside the market with cheaper prices. How then did Aaron made the connection that took him to France. Some said it was as refugees, all I knew was that we were to hear about it when his telephone numbers started circulating. It was a months tale of wonders here. Many started gearing up as refugees to head to France. Telephone in existence in Nigeria then was only land phones. So, to communicate with your family, you needs to find someone with land phone and send the number to your son abroad who in turn would call first to tell the owner that he would be calling his family at arranged date in future. Then, it was like hearing from one in heaven. Calls like that alone always elevates the status of family to the list of awaiting wealthy. 

If you’re not observant enough, you might not notice that the family of the caller here within months, becomes healthy, jovial and younger free of anxieties and full of Hope just for receiving foreign calls. Foreign calls seems to have therapeutics powers. 

Two years later, we heard that Aaron was in detention house for raping his wife. People was surprised. Some prevented their wards from going to Europe, people just can’t believed what they were hearing. How can you rape your own wife?

This white people are crazy. We heard that he married a Russian French woman he meet there that they had a son. What is raping again? He was sent to court and given three years. 

Six months inside prison, his wife came with a man on white top and black trousers to see him one winter morning. She came to nullify the marriage. No one knew exactly when things went to south in Aaron’s head after that visit. Some pegged it to the signing of the papers while the warden that took him to see his wife pegged it to the moment the visitors were leaving. The way the white lady was dragging Aaron’s son when they were leaving brought a river of floods flowing down Aaron’s face. He had stood after the signing without much indicating he was in pain and when the woman shouted to the son for wanting to stay with the father and dragging him roughly, tears flowed. 

The warden that took him there was observing things and decided to give him a little time to get hold of himself before sending him back to his cell. 

“ It would be alright, soon you would be out of here” the warden assured him.

Aaron who had been model prisoner for six months changed over night after that visit. It was rule there for prisoners that wants to work or study to fill forms to indicate their intentions. Those that wants to be left alone will watch movies while others earn more. 

Aaron had worked since entering there, after that visit, he became moody, refusing to work, refusing to associate or even watch movies. He started talking to himself at times, finding fault were none exist. Challenging the orders of the wardens that they contemplated sending him to the psychiatric ward. But the warden that took him to the annulment stood against that move. He advices sending shrink to him every three weeks for evaluation and even bought Bible for him. The man believed he knew when whatever snapped in Aaron head did and the way out of it. 

Cleaning of his cell and joining others even for exercise became a tedious work to the annoyance of the other wardens. That phase in Aaron’s life there lasted for about six more month with that particular warden being the pillar. He started showing sign of coming out of it when he began doing all required of him and went back to work. He threw himself into all manners of hard work others inmates were running away from with all pleasure. Wardens believed he was after money while some believed it was a way of beating his sorrow.

They couldn't believe the amount of strength in him. He even complains when it is break time.

A year and half later, he stood at the airport with three other freed inmates waiting for their plane back to Nigeria.