End of a dream (II)

By a speedy navigation To remove my habitation To a nearer situation And pay you my adoration,’ I mumbled into my pillow before I heard Tahir’s voice saying. ‘Wake up Bint, wake up. You are talking in your sleep.’ He added, shaking my shoulder.   ‘I was?’ I asked, sitting up on the bed and […]

By a speedy navigation

To remove my habitation

To a nearer situation

And pay you my adoration,’ I mumbled into my pillow before I heard Tahir’s voice saying.

‘Wake up Bint, wake up. You are talking in your sleep.’ He added, shaking my shoulder.

  ‘I was?’ I asked, sitting up on the bed and putting my head on the headrest. ‘I didn’t realise I was reciting the poem out loud.’

‘You were reading a poem in your sleep?’ Tahir sounded incredulous.

‘Yes, I was having a dream about the night Mansur proposed to Asabe. It was so romantic, somehow in the light of this tragedy, I found myself re-living everything as it if happened last night.’ I explained.

‘What has the poem got to do with it?’ He asked.

‘That was how he proposed.’

‘You mean that dry Mansur actually read out a poem to Asabe as his marriage proposal?’

‘Yes, he wasn’t so dry then. Anyway this was how it happened. He came to see her on campus and parked his car in front of Nana Hall. When she came out, he left the car, carrying an envelope and said they were taking a stroll instead. They walked behind the Hostel down ring-road, talking lightly and basically enjoying each other’s company. When they began to walk towards the lecture halls, they came across one of those benches spread around BUK Old Campus at the time. Mansur sat on one and invited her to sit as well. When she did, he brought out his long, brown envelope, pulled out a piece of cardboard and began to read out this poem.’

Most amiable Madam

After a long consideration

I have a great inclination

To become your relation

And to give demonstration

To this my estimation

I am making preparation

By a speedy navigation

To remove my habitation

To a nearer situation

And pay you my adoration

If this my declaration

Should meet with your approbation

It will discharge an obligation

Without dissemination

From generation to generation’.  I concluded

‘Incredible, you mean you remember this poem after 17 years?’  Tahir asked.

‘Its 18 years actually, because they didn’t marry till the following year. Well cramming the poem wasn’t so difficult seeing that we had it pasted on the wall in our room from that night on. It was the first thing we saw every morning when we woke up and the last thing we saw every night. It lay right next to our copy of Suratul Mulk, which we also pasted there when we heard about the virtues of reading it every night. Needless to say we ended up memorising both.’ I explained.

‘So what did she say after he read the poem?’

‘At first she didn’t know it was a marriage proposal, she collected the poem from him, saw her passport photograph at the top and his at the bottom, but just kept saying, ‘Oh how nice, how lovely.’ Mansur had to remind her he was waiting for an answer before Asabe said ‘Answer to what?’ and he replied, ‘I said I wanted to be your relation.’ ‘But you can’t, I mean, how can you be?’ Mansur asked her to read the poem to herself, then it dawned on her what he meant, and she was so shy she could only nod her head in acceptance. Asabe came back to the room and told us and it was what we talked about till late into the night. As an incurable romantic, all I kept saying to her was ‘Allah Ya sa mu a danshinku’. For, I certainly wished for a marriage proposal just as romantic as hers.’ I concluded.

‘And am sure you got one.’ Tahir answered with a confident smile.

‘I surely never did, at least not from you. I remember everything you said to me as if it was yesterday. ’

‘Really, so what did I say?’

‘You simply said, ‘Bint, I’d like to meet your father, you know, to be able to tell him, hey I like this girl.’ And we both laughed. It was not until you were walking me from your car to our home’s front door that I realised you were serious, because you repeated the request to meet Baba and wished for an appointment to come with your folks.’

‘You mean that was all?’ Tahir asked disbelievingly.

‘Yes, that was it. It’s just that you made it up to me in so many other romantic ways after our marriage.’  

‘Well that’s a huge relief, for I can’t stand the thought that that Dry Mansur was in any way more romantic than I was.’  He defended.

‘Talking about dry Mansur, how did it go at your meeting this afternoon?’

‘Horribly, horribly I say. Why do you think I was being so uncomplimentary about him today? I have never known him to be so pig-headed, but today he was the ultimate pig head. He wouldn’t listen to any argument from Ibrahim and myself, he just kept saying that the decision he took was the right one, that their marriage couldn’t be salvaged. Yet he couldn’t give us a single specific reason for the divorce. We eventually got angry and decided to leave. He walked us to the door and said what he did was in their best interests. Needless to say, neither of us answered him. But on our way home we decided to give him a little more time and then see him again.’

‘I’m afraid there is something he isn’t telling you, the divorce is thrice-pronounced, it’s irrevocable.’ Putting down the book he had on his chest ever since he woke me up to say I was talking in my sleep, Tahir could only say, as we did several hours earlier, ‘Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un.’

To be continued