A TRANSIENT AFFAIR by Korkor Kugblenu

We are finally moving in. The stuff from the old office sits in an untidy clutter on the newly tiled floor; they are covered with a large cloth to prevent the dust from settling on them. There are workmen all over, making a hell of a lot of noise and causing a lot of dirt. Yes, it isn’t finished but at least it is bigger and airier than the old office and it belongs to us.

I have just joined the company but I feel like a part of the family already. The people are nice and though it is small, the company is working hard to be the best; or so I think.

Ayitey sits on the last step of the staircase. He closes his eyes as a waft of dust blows in from the open window (It is still being fixed). Three more of us sit on chairs opposite him.

“Alright he’s done,” the administrator announces from one of the finished inner offices. That is our cue to get off our asses and start moving the important things from the larger, yet unfinished main office.

I hoist a computer monitor and proceed to the finished office to deposit it. At the door I come face to face with Ayitey. He has gone in with a CPU and he‘s coming out. He stops right in front of me and bites his lower lip, his eyes half close the way they always do when he finds himself alone with me.

I had known from the first time I met him that he liked me. There had been something in the way he’d stopped to look straight into my eyes when I was being introduced to him that made me think,

“Mmm.”

I had had no intention of paying attention to the strong attraction between us, especially since the General Manager constantly sang out in her annoying contralto,

“No office romance!”

But the way he had grabbed me one night, as I was leaving the old office for home, pinning me to the wall and kissing me, tongue and all, had made it damned near impossible to ignore how he makes my heart race. The surprise and pleasure of it was inspirational. I had a feeling that the next few months were either going to be ecstatic or get me into trouble or both.

The sun is heading west and is about three quarters of the way there. We are done packing the stuff into the finished office and are sitting about discussing random things when a comfortable silence falls over us, I get up with conviction and start for the bushes.

“Where are you going?” Ayitey follows.

Without turning back, I answer that I am going for a walk, and hopefully, find a shortcut: the only road we know to the office building is dirty and long. The area, situated somewhere in La, is somewhat secluded. It is still developing so there are annoying things to contend with like red dust from the road, mud when it rains and the strong intermittent stench of pig and cow shit; Somebody apparently owns a pig sty which just happens to be right smack next to our new building; and a herd of cows sometimes come round the area to graze.

Ayitey follows me and on his heels is his long-time admirer, Adobea. She was at the company before I got there and she liked him before I liked him. I suppose that makes her feel like she has an I-was-there-first right of sorts. She doesn’t give us any breathing space; always afoot, everywhere we go.

I suppose I am to blame for that. But it isn’t really my fault. I mean how was I to know when I found her crying on that step that the tears were because Ayitey had been paying so much attention to me and she felt threatened by it. I went ahead and gave her this pep talk about reaching out for what you want and grabbing it. And now I have created a monster.

“Don’t hold back,” I preached that auspicious afternoon.

Through her drying tears she smiled and nodded assertively. “Go get what I want.”

“That’s the spirit,” I urged. After all, I figured, we girls are supposed to stick together and help each other when we can.

Not long after that I discovered that I am the reason for her sorrow. Ayitey told me that she’d asked him if he liked me. His answer would help her decide what to do next, she’d said. I could only raise my brows and smirk to myself.

Our romance was just that; ours. I wasn’t about to tell her, ‘hey back off, I want him’. That was not my style and it wouldn’t make sense; seeing as we both have real competition elsewhere – his girlfriend!

So there I am standing on a pile of cement blocks, with my hand shading my eyes against the late afternoon sun trying to decipher a pathway to use as a shortcut. I see nothing but shrubbery, incomplete buildings and in the distance, a river of sorts.

I bring my attention back to my immediate surroundings and find myself looking at Ayitey, tall, handsomely built and with a full head of nappy hair. Right behind him is my rival (for lack of a better word).

I haven’t known him for long but I know that I am exactly the kind of woman he wants and Adobea is in no way like me, physically or otherwise. I know, I know, I sound almost condescending. I’m not. I just know what I have and who I am and how to use the knowledge to my advantage. Every girl should have that!

I jump off the stack of blocks and head back to the office. The other two follow like ducklings after their mother. Adobea is trailing behind; somehow I find that symbolic.

Just as we reach the building, Ayitey gets a call on his mobile phone. Unintentionally eavesdropping on parts of it, I realise that the conversation is about me and it sounds like a continuation of a previous one. Imagine my surprise when I discover that it is his girlfriend on the other end of the line before he walks off to have the conversation in private.

“You told your girl about me?” I asked a few hours later when we were closed from work.

He nods with one of his bitten-lip smiles. “I told her that there was a new girl at the office and she is mad sexy.”

“She wasn’t peeved?” I am incredulous. Who tells their girl that they find another girl attractive?

“Nah, she just teased me that I like you cos I’m always talking about you.”

We are walking to the main road to get a car. It requires a fifteen minute walk to get there, however, at the rate we are going; it will probably take us five times that amount of time.

Apparently, when he took the call, he had walked back to the spot we had stopped at earlier and had found a way to avoid the dirt road. Well most of it anyway.

When we arrive at the river, we stop. Up close, it isn’t much to look at. It is filthy and it stinks.

“Are you in a hurry?” Ayitey asks.

“Why?”

“Let’s sit here and talk, throw stones into the water…”

“Make wishes, kiss ...” I continue.

He smiles and moves in closer to fulfil my wish. I love to kiss him.

“But this place smells terrible,” I whine after the kiss.

“There’s no arguing that we work in a house surrounded by sand and shit but we’ll make it beautiful. We’ll imagine that the water is clear and there are dragon flies skidding on the surface and the place smells of jasmines,” he says, kissing me all over my face.

I giggle. At that particular moment, holding me against him, hearing him say those things to me and his soft lips and warm breath caressing my senses; I am happy; truly, deeply, completely happy.
We don’t throw stones, don’t even sit there. We walk along it, holding hands. And as we walk, I think to myself,

‘This is the most beautiful place on earth’.

We come across a herd of cows

“Let’s go stand in their midst. They won’t hurt us,” He whispers into my ear and leads me into their midst. If the peacefully grazing beasts notice us, they give no indication of it.

“Look,” I point at the dusk sky ablaze with amber and orange and purple. Ayitey’s eyes follow my finger and he smiles at the beautiful sight. He takes a snap shot of it with his mobile phone and turns to me to ask,

“Why am I attracted to you?”

“You should know that, I know why I like you,” I answer.

“Why do you?”

“Because I feel like you understand the way I think better than anyone else I’ve ever met. I mean none of my other boyfriends would want to stand here,” I encompass our surroundings with outstretched arms,

“Amidst all this dust and shit and these beasts and want to talk about the beauty of the darkening sky.”

We kiss again and walk on to what is left of the Kpeshie lagoon. The vast, arid, sandy land is dotted in places with shrubs and few trees. Also with people squatting in places, some within the shrubbery others not bothering to hide the call they have received from nature.

Yet through the disgusting spectacle we walk on to stand by the lagoon’s edge and watch the dirty water gently ebb and flow against the corrupted sand. We don’t dare sit for fear of encountering some undesirable morsels of human excreta.

After minutes of him holding me close to him from behind in silence, Ayitey asks, “Do you think we can walk on water?”

“Sure why not if Jesus did it...”

“I’m not talking miraculously, I mean scientifically possible.”

“I suppose if you put your mind to it.”

“You want to try?” he asks and walks closer to the water pulling me along.

“Don’t be silly, I can’t swim,” I am laughing.

“You don’t have to; we’ll be walking on water,” he says and playfully tugs at me for a while but he stops and we laugh, then hold each other again and watch the large yellow moon come up.

“That’s beautiful,” we say in unison.

“I love you,” I tell him with my eyes still on the moon. He doesn’t say anything. I turn around to look into his eyes.

“I love you,” I tell him again.

“Don’t lie to me,” he answers. “It’s just the moment. I also feel very close to you right now.”

“I love you. Don’t think about it, don’t try to return it, just know it.”

He doesn’t say it back but I know he feels something strong for me. He doesn’t have to put it in words all he has to do is look at me or touch me and say something like,

“We’re not having sex but I’m having fun” like he said the day before.

“What can I do to make you leave your girl and stay with me?” The moon is high up.

It has become smaller and whiter and it casts shadows on the unfinished cement wall. We left the lagoon and found an incomplete building to hide in. We are sitting on the hard unfinished floor smoking weed. He’d watched in amusement about half an hour ago when I coughed and gagged as the smoke assaulted my throat.

“Why do you want to do that?”

“Because I want you all to myself.”

“Are you lit yet?” he asks me. I shake my head no. “That’s OK I got my first buzz after trying it about three times.” He takes the joint from me and drags deeply before asking,

“What are you going to say if my girl calls you up and asks you ‘are you f**king my boyfriend?’” he hands the stick back to me.

I take a drag of it, hold it, swallow it and blow the rest out, just like he taught me, before I say,

“But we’re not sleeping together so I’ll tell her no.”

“What if she asks after we do,” he insists.

“Then I’ll tell her, ‘my sister you’ve had him for six years couldn’t I have him for the next six?’”

He laughs and kisses me.

Time passes. We never did get to make love, I didn’t steal him from his girl and I left the company. But the memory stays. In the end what is life but a collection of memories; some good some bad but all a testament to the life we’ve lived.