(By Oluwatoyin Ikuomola)
Continued from part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six
“You’ve made the nightmares come back. You want to kill me in my sleep. Why not just drive a knife through my heart? You have already killed me; I am merely a walking corpse now.”
Her voice was still, calm and emotionless,
“I had no idea the hurt was still as fresh as this. But you see, he was my husband to be, and you almost killed him.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Ngozi had sold her heart to the devil.
“Ngozi he raped me! He raped me. Your husband to be raped your own sister and you knew it, you know it, you’ve always known it. You slapped me the first night I encountered the rats Ngozi, you slapped me. And you left the next day.”
“I was young, afraid and confused. I had to protect my marriage”, she said wearily.
“No Ngozi. You were afraid and ashamed that your husband to be had raped your sister. You blamed him, but you couldn’t punish him, so you decided to punish me instead. I had a feel of hell on earth Ngozi, and all you did was to pour salt water into my wounds.”
I looked out of my window. The moon shone so brightly. I was in the same room. The rape, the fire and the torture room, the betrayer present with me.
“I am sorry Onyeka. Forgive me.”
I looked at her.
“Don’t bring that bastard into this world. He will be just like me and he will hate you and curse you in spite with much more passion than I have. He will even be the one to kill you.”
I waited for her to say it; I yearned for her to say it. She knew me too well; she said it.
“It is Emeka’s child.”
A very loud silence fell on the room.
Forcing myself to break the silence, I asked,
“And how is Emeka?”
“Dead”, she said.
The concluding part comes up tomorrow
