An Immortal Oath

I felt my nostrils flare in the callous heat of Muhammed Murtala International Airport. A morning of torso invoking chaos at the entry to this structure of aerodynamic potential. The queue winded into an indoor jungle like a tributary entering the Niger River. A patchwork of colored poly-cotton cloth groped the curves of the patted lady with heavy dark cheeks holding her ground in-front. She seemed but another barrier blocking my way to flight FTU550 that would eventually send me to Tel Aviv. Afia’s text jolted my pocket “you get to the boarding gate?”. “Almost” is what I could muster nervously with my thumbs. 

“Why are they taking so long now, eh” the lady’s tongue slapped around in her mouth, while both palms opened flinging to the sides in histrionic gesture - as she preached to the sky. “I have a white-wedding in London tomorrow, and I can not be late” her accent changed to posh British pitch that upped her volume a notch. “Well I am getting Married tomorrow, literally” I dropped on her the word package. “You no say now, you no say” she pouted, her accent clearing back to her Nigerian, Yoruba pidgen-english- side. “How you get married, and you not there, How you plan” She added it pulling in her chin giving me the skeptical look. “Yow fiancé do everything now, hu, she do it all now”. I smiled “Yeah she does, she likes the wedding planning part, and she’s good with the details”. “Ofcourse she is” her neck pulls back to the right “and she probably good at emptying yow bank account now, hu, ooooh ooooh”. The gentleman behind on the queue, giggled, he didn’t have to eaves-drop, personal space wasn’t part of the etiquette in this side of the world - as he peeked at me above his phone, his left fingers jointed to his brown-leather attache case. “I don’t have that much in the bank to take from” I jotted back. “ooooh, and you definitely have nothing now” she laughed pleasingly. Edged on by the gentlemans hearty-full belly laugh. It was almost contagious, I laughed too. “She will leave you with a clean slate after your special-day” she continued with an elongated “oooooooooooh-o”. 

The clock on the airport wall was hung at a slightly dysfunctional angle. Its digital gym rectangular red numbers blinking, and signal 10:07. “I stayed in country because I had some work to finish” I told her, “and then my flight yesterday got cancelled”. “What you work in” she snorted inquisitively. “ A Hong-Kong based company that has some Tungsten-metal mines here in the northern plateau” I told her confidently. “Taking our minerals now, hu” she bloated out. “don’t hate the player, hate the game” I inserted wryly. “You are the game now!” she jammed and laughed with her motherly heaviness. “Well you are the one flying to London, I presume for a lavish-all-out monetary foolish wedding. Instead of a traditional event that is true to your African roots” I had to slip in those words. “Ahh, touche now, touche” she voiced welcoming her contradiction. 

The departure line started to unravel. “I still don’t understand why you come last minute” she scolded - I could see the stencil of her drawn eyebrow. “Well, its a long story..” before I could finish. The rush of people in a mosh of directions didn’t help the security checkpoint. I could see them diving into the passengers bags in a tortuously slow manner. A police man, with a Lagos state patch was sleeping on the security checks counter top. The open Air-Conditioners flaps didn't close or blow in symbolic animation. I can understand the officers drowsiness. “When it rains everyone gets wet, when there is no AC everyone sweats” the gentelman behind added discernibly. Just as the officers colleague stepped up to me with puckered lips - “what you bring for me, sah” with his white melanin lacking palms open and contrasting his dark fingers. “I have nothing” I tell him irritally. “nothing eh” he spat inversely in his mouth. “Ah, now, He is getting matrimonially bonded tomorrow!” the colorful cloth lady proudly inserted as if it was a security statement, While she lowered her luggage from the checking station. “Why you no give me a present, sah” the officer jumped in. “Because I don’t have for you” I added in slow motion. He could not help himself from redundantly requesting a present, all while his Starsky&Hutch buddy was on his second snooze. “Ttssss, ehh” he spate again inversely. I felt like spitting on the oval knob of his forehead. Just as a large sweat-droplet formed serendipitously to take away my urge. It fell in the interval of space, the spare change of inches he left between us. “Hot now, eh” was his last offer for my unsubscribed generosity. 

When the 757 narrow-body airliner wiggled off the runway, I sighed. The pixilated screen became a porn-map to my eyes. I traced the grey-plane emoji along a crooked line over an outline of a bulging sandwich, that connected to the hungry mouth of the levant. Its deceitful ratio size to ground made it appear in five minutes and fifteen seconds we would land in Ben-Gurion Airport. Where a night taxi would whisk me homeward bound. 

I went over my wedding speech on the foldable tray in those no-man hours perched in the sky. I edited my ancient Jewish vows, and oaths with scribbles and notes. 

The gentleman from the queue, snored intolerantly loud. The stewardess skipped him with the croissants on her pastry feeding run. He eventually awoke, with the pooched face of a man robbed of a croissant. His indignation did not calm the stewardess. Her oblique French accent made it necessary to explain the rules of receiving that crummy crumbled pastry. " You snooze, you lose" she basically told him. He raised his voice, and she did hers. He eventually got a croissant from the back-stock-pile. The feeling of mutual hate lingered heavily and unforgivably between them until the dunlop tires touched pavement. 

The Welcome to Israel grass-sign landscaped to precision, seemed be written just to welcome myself. 

I awoke to a flood of light in our family houses large pain windows. The old Jerusalem stone with Andalusian-lime plaster, weaved these stones together, signaled I had arrived. I heard the movements of people. I saw the silhouette of her features, and her hand crafted lips above mine. “Hey babe” Afia warmed with, “welcome”.

I perched on the soft mattress, and watched her makeup and hairstylist ornament her face. She sunk coronated on a white rattan-back swivel chair with a dangling sign “Soon to be Bride”. 

My younger brother walked in “what do you think?”. His dress shirt half buttoned to his navel with no socks on and a glint of mishevanous fluttering off his eyeslashes. A photographer and videographer in toe, started barking orders. “Now lets hang up your suit under the Italian-Lemon canopy” the thicket of trees washed the light through onto ornate leave scattered natural stone. They hovered around the dangling Hugo-Boss stitched attire, like a Hyena duo assessing their prey. Until they got their cinematic fix correct. The camera man seemed to have learnt all about myself “he knows what you like” Afia announced through the makeup enhanced side of her mouth. Frozen into position by the emissaries of beauty, attempting to enhance her cappuccino-dripped skin into something of a mask. 

I called the Rabbi to update him that I prepared a speech at the Alter. “Oh no” he blurted “I am booked for you next week”. “Okay, well its tonight Rabbi” I told him. “I think I double booked” he offered vocally embarresed. “You think, you can cancel them” I said impatiently. “I can't, I am really sorry”. 

My friend squad all appeared. Afia, ordered us to pickup the flower bouquet. The immersed florist lady her hair a Syrian-border crossing of split black sides. Got entangled in our excitement - my buddy Ruby screamed jovially his friendly nonsense. She handed me the bouquet of thoughtfully placed twigs of multi-colors. I quickly snapped a picture, and forwarded it to Afia. “Garbage!”, she stroked back on her keys. The squad felt it “If there is one thing you can say about Afia, is she knows what she wants to a T” Ruby announced while he swung his long arms in restlessness. The Syrian-Border split lady seemed offended, “Its classic bouquet for weddings, I did the exact same for someone else this morning”. She isn’t someone else my buddy Aden injected, “she definitely knows what she wants” as he friendly patted me on the head, and gave some love jabs at my ribs. 

When the bouquet was sorted, we rolled back - grabbed and headed to the event hall. The traffic brought us arguably on time as the guests, eased up to the villages venue. A rustic, ornate entrance with cream-white-visterias hanging down to greet us. I had only seen it in the pictures, Afia blasted me with over messenger. The solstice seemed glazed naked above, while the temperature found its own equilibrium. 

I got to meet the dozens of guests who came from abroad, and all the others I haven’t seen in quite some time. No pre-rehearsal dinner, only after-wedding dinners were planned for the next week. I wanted to give all my attention, and realized that four-hundred people entering with me simultaneously was going to be overbearing. 

Natan and his girl-friend, pulled me to a side citrus tree at the reception. With intense hedonistic eyes and cutting open in downwards hand motions to make a point. Exclaimed, everything is perfect here, the food, decoration, and weather - “I am not sweating a bit” - perfect really. While he sedatly touched the Kobester named cocktail to his lips. While, a Hassidic older man with a beard that seemed to strangle his neck whom I never meet - grabbed my hand to iterate the wholeness of Jewish Marriage “you know when a man, and woman unit its by god”. A large hand clasped my back, “Mikey” I gasped, “I didn’t think you would come…” I don’t like to RSVP” his East-London accent emerged. So, did most of Afias Ethiopian family - RSVP was considered an insult we just had to find out via surprise who came on the day. 

The wedding planner rocked up with his ear piece and radio locked-in for any emergency, and whispered in my ear its time to walk down the isle. 

The brilliant lights of the day seemed to be eatin and spat out in tufts of crimson sedat apprehension. Apprehension of the “Hurry up, and wait” the elasticity of time. I strolled down under a cheer of clasps - I felt misplaced - as my families stood under the alter of braided grapevine tendrils reaching softly to the emerging moon - it seemed to tug it so gently into a gradual tide. That brought out “Afia” in a crown of flowers that were too detailed for pictures to describe. Her gown flooded the asymmetric slabs of rock, a whiteness a blazed with glossy fear. And trembling beauty I reached her half way down the path. I felt the tips of her cool fingers, and the radiant warmth of her forehead. My mind dared me to pull of her cloth, to find her naked, I felt she drew me out in naked in the fish bowl. I saw the urge to hold her hand and runaway, to escape these eyeballs that know not my pain and veiled anxieties. The eyeballs seemed to amass themselves in a sense of reassurance, from both sides of the isle. Seemingly to understand my issues, and to be absent from them too - as if everything was Happy Ever After. If you only beleived. As if they saw with myself, in that moment the sheer scales of life’s contradictions. I heard the crowds shuttering quietness. And, focused my attention to hiding her features with the laced fabric veil that hung above her head. 

The Rabbi welcomed us together at the alter, and went through the ceremony motions. I stopped him midway to speak. 

“I am not good at speaking infront of people, people speaking gets me nervous” I offered loudly to the guests lounged out all the way back to the outer hedge. It was a sacrifice to my speaking deities, to quell my anxieties. 

“It would be impossible for one not to concede to the sheer sense of history this moment encapsulates” 

I continued rhetorically. “Has one ever heard of one, besides for the Israelite tribes who on the happiest of days, announces if I forget Jerusalem let my right hand forget its cunning” 

I allowed a long second, and scanned the familiar family and unfamiliar faces, that surprised us this evening - as I surprised myself. 

“Has anyone ever heard of a daughter of a Saladin or a son of a crusader, that breaks glass on his or her wedding day in remembrance of Jerusalem” 

The one-way questions wondered into spoken word poetry that tangled two stories into one. When the hush of the guests, sub-hushed. I felt at ease to ask that simple question. 

“Afia Will you be my wife”. 

“Afia” seemed to mimic the guests - and punctured the silence into “I do, I do”