Love Hates…
AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN
LOVE HATES
A CHRISEFFE BLISS
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The Author
EPISODE 12
Effe sighed, and then she asked the manager if she could make a quick call before leaving.
“Sure, sure, please come this way,” he said and ushered her into a neat office where there were some young women sitting at switchboards. “Ten Dinars for five minutes all African calls.”
“Umm, I don’t have dinars,” she said quickly. “Five dollars be enough?”
He smiled broadly and nodded.
Effe handed him the money and was shown into a private booth.
She called her family immediately. Tunisia was an hour ahead of Ghana, and so she was sure her father would not have left for the office yet.
Ken Kedem answered the telephone, and then screamed with relief when he heard his daughter’s voice.
“Oh, Effe!” he cried, relieved and excited. “Don’t scare us this way again. We’ve been so worried sick! Your mother is so miserable! And your sister! Hey, Ivy, Eyram, come around! It is Effe! What happened, dear? Why have you kept us in such terrible agony?”
Her father activated the loud speaker.
Her mother, Ivy Kedem, and twin sister, Eyram, were both around, and they had a relieved and happy time together. Effe explained that it had been quite hectic in Libya and she had not been able to get a flight, but some good Samaritans had helped her, and she was now in Tunisia, headed for Tunis to get a flight home.
“Oh, God be with you!” Ivy exclaimed. “I’ve been so worried sick! Please, hurry back home!”
She spoke with them for a while, and then the manager stuck his head in and informed her the driver was now ready. Effe nodded and informed her parents that she would call later because her car was ready.
They said their goodbyes, and then Effe sighed suddenly and spoke to her sister.
“Rammy?” she said softly. “A word with you, please.”
“Just a second, Ef,” Eyram said, and a moment later the open space quality of the call receded, and Effe knew that Eyram had deactivated the loudspeaker. “Speak, Ef. And please hurry up back! Missed you bunch!”
“Missed you too, Rammy,” Effe said.
The manager stuck his head back in and gestured at his time, and Effe promptly handed over another five dollars which the man took happily.
“I met Chris Bawa here, Rammy,” Effe said softly. “You remember Chris? Baaba’s….”
“I remember Chris, Ef!” Eyram cut in sharply. “Goodness me! You met him in Tripoli?”
“Yes,” Effe said dully. “He’s now a truck driver! And you wouldn’t believe this, Eyram. He gave me a lift from Libya to Tunisia!”
“That must have been terrible!” Eyram said quickly, but her voice was now unstable and Effe noticed it, but put it down to bad reception.
“Most horrible moments of my life, Rammy,” Effe said. “I would tell you more when I get home. Chris Bawa hates me that much, Rammy, very much.”
“And it bothers you?” Eyram asked carefully.
Effe was quiet for some time, and then she spoke finally.
“Yes, Rammy, it does, honestly,” she said quietly. “His disdain and hatred are quite palpable. It is good, though, that we’ve parted again.”
“So, you’re not near him?”
“No, Rammy. I’m about to leave in a chartered car. He’s on the premises somewhere, but I need to move on, you know. I possibly can’t change how he feels about me, and so I might as well let it ride.”
Eyram sighed, and then she spoke very softly.
“I guess this is the time to finally tell you what happened, Ef,” Eyram said in a voice that was suddenly bitter and in pain. “After the wedding day drama, Baaba and Jonathan reported Chris to the police, accusing him of assault and rape of Baaba. You had left for the States by then.”
And then suddenly all the pieces fell into place perfectly!
It all made perfect sense to Effe in a moment of shattering, jangling, explosive lucidity!
Effe gasped as she went numb all over, and suddenly her hands shook very badly, and she could barely breathe.
“Rammy!” Effe whispered, aghast. “No, no, no! Please don’t tell me you…oh, Lord, Rammy! How could you? You agreed to testify against Chris? As me? You pretended to be me and testified against Chris, didn’t you? Oh, my God! Rammy! Tell me you didn’t do it…please, tell me you didn’t do that!”
Eyram’s voice shook.
“I’m sorry, Ef, I really am!” she said plaintively. “It has really haunted me for many years! Baaba and Jonathan didn’t want you to know after you refused to testify! They told me Chris could still be dangerous to them since they wanted to marry.
I refused, of course! But then, when you left for the States, Chris attacked Baaba brutally again. She was admitted to Dr. Anaman’s hospital, and when I visited her and saw the horrible swellings, I could not hold back my tears. So, I agreed finally to testify against him that I saw him assaulting Baaba in her room, just like you told me you witnessed the first time you saw Chris Bawa!”
Effe was so flabbergasted that she could not speak for some time.
“Please, Ef, say something!” Eyram said with an unsteady voice. “I’m so sorry to have kept it from you. Please forgive me!”
“What have you done, Rammy?” Effe gasped with pain and felt the crushing weight of dejection assailing her. “How could you betray me like this? You two should have informed me! Goodness me! Was Chris in the courtroom that day?”
“Yes, Ef, he was,” Eyram said miserably. “And I would never forget the look on his face! Ef, I’m so very sorry! Please forgive me! If he’s around, I can speak to him and tell him it wasn’t you who testified against him that day!”
Effe was stunned and flummoxed!
She dropped the receiver and stood up sharply!
She was dizzy, and she could barely breathe!
Her breath came in wheezes as she gripped the back of the chair she had been sitting on in a frantic bid to stay standing.
No wonder Chris had been so incensed with wrath when she told him she had not witnessed against him! He had been horrified that she could obviously lie like that! No wonder he could barely stand to be in her presence for even a minute!
He had sat in there and watched Eyram – but believed she was Effe – lying to the court and giving an eye witness account that crucified him with a fifteen-year sentencing!
And then, eight years later he had met Effe, and she had looked him in the eye and vehemently denied ever witnessing against him!
In his sight Effe was a monster, a lying beast who could lie through her teeth, and because of that his ire had been stoked, and with very good reason too! Now, she understood Chris, and understood his absolute disgust in not even wanting to listen to a word she said.
To him, if she was capable of being such a horrible liar, there was nothing she could not say or do to make her position entrenched!
Yes, Chris would always believe the worst of her!
Effe was sweating, and it took a moment for her to be aware that the manager was calling her. She looked at him dazedly and saw his lips moving but could not really hear what he was saying for a moment.
She shook her head and forced herself to the present.
“Are you okay, miss?” the man was saying in a very worried voice. “You…you look sick.”
She shook her head groggily and licked her lips.
“Please, I won’t be going to Tunis anymore, at least not now,” she whispered painfully. “I…got some bad news and I…need to speak with one of the gentlemen. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience I have caused you!”
“Oh, not a problem, madam!” he said with a relieved smile. “We will only keep two percent of the charge for inconvenience, and refund the rest. We’re at your service, madam.”
Effe nodded her gratitude.
Everything had changed so completely now!
Chris had indeed witnessed it, and that was why he had been so sick of her! No, she could not leave now. She had to explain to him, even if he would not believe her. She had to tell him the truth, and only then would she be able to have a semblance of peace again.
Dear Lord!
How could Eyram and Baaba betray her like this?
That was why Chris had been imprisoned for three years out of an intended fifteen! It could have been far worse than that, and none of them had bothered to inform her! Three years in prison had made Chris so bitter and filled with wrath!
No wonder he had blamed what he had become on her!
True, he had been a beast, the worst kind, and at the age of twenty she had been filled with great anger and disgust for him! But she was older now, and could not afford to live knowing he thought so ill of her.
It had become imperative to listen to him, and to let him listen to her! What had seemed concrete evidence to him was but an interplay of actors, a horrible scheme cooked up by Baaba that had put a wedge of pain and mistrust between her and Chris Bawa.
Effe got out of the office and rushed to the washroom.
She stood looking at her face in the mirror for a long time.
She admitted to herself that she had never felt so lonely, so betrayed and so much in pain! The skeletons had come out of the closet, and they were looking really terrible indeed!
These were not bony, clean skeletons, but disgusting and nightmarish gargoyles that were capable of impacting the worst kind of horror the mind could ever conceive!
She knew it was time for a confrontation, no matter how ugly the prospect seemed. At least, she would tell him the truth as she knew it, and if he decided not to see her again, and continue to hate her with a venom, she would know that she told him the truth.
She waited for her turmoil to simmer down, and then she sighed miserably and went out of the administrative building to look for that dark, furious man!
***
The men had said they were going to find breakfast to eat, so she asked around, and one of the attendants went with her and then showed her the huge eatery.
When Effe entered she came to a halt, quite startled to see that the place was almost full that morning. It was a huge place that had glass walls all around. The chairs were mostly hardened red plastic and white-topped matt tables, arranged beautifully with rows between them.
Even that early in the morning it had a lot of customers, mostly men, and she deduced that a lot of truckers stopped here to have breakfast. On her left was the ordering front which consisted of a long front counter shaped in a an eye-catching ‘S’.
People were leaning across it and ordering food.
The male waiters wore dark jeans trousers and blue-black shirts, whilst the females wore long blue-black dresses with white hijabs around their heads. The talk around was gentle, and a laugh rippled from here and there.
When Effe entered, however, the low hubbub died down a little as the eyes of many men feasted on her.
Even that early in the morning, her beauty was an amazing blast that drew the admiring eyes of the men, some so frankly that she felt exposed like a drop of blood on snow.
Unconsciously, she reached up to draw her hair behind her ears, and then she saw a hand raised at the far end, and recognized the surprised face of Mike Crankson as he beckoned to her.
Effe sighed and made her way toward them.
Many men shifted and offered her seats beside them, and soon low laughter rippled through the room as she shook her head graciously each time she was offered a seat with a gentle smile.
The four of them were sitting around a long table that overlooked the entrance of the eatery. Wachipa and Wailer also turned to watch her approach, but Chris remained still with his eyes turned toward the window.
Effe smiled uncertainly when she reached their table.
“Well, seems someone decided to have breakfast with us after all,” Mike said with a smile as he shifted and indicated the space beside him. “Sit with me, my lovely angel.”
Effe chuckled briefly without much emotion and sat down gratefully beside him, and found herself looking into the cold eyes of Chris Bawa.
“Hello, Chris,” she said softly and in an unsteady voice.
He stared at her without blinking or responding, and then he picked up a triangular toasted bread and bit into its crunchy sweetness as he picked up his mug of coffee and sipped gingerly.
“You’re a bush boy, Chrissy,” Wailer said softly as he pointed a huge hamburger at Chris. “Lady acknowledges you, the way of a gentleman is to acknowledge her back.”
“Trust me, she ain’t no lady,” Chris said bitterly as his eyes came back to rest on Effe. “She strikes worse than a rattle snake, or the deadliest mamba in the wilds.”
“Jesus, Chris!” Wachipa retorted with sudden disapproval and chagrin. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve done nothing but put the girl down from the onset!”
“Maybe he wanted to add her to his laid list some time ago and failed,” Crankson said with a chuckle, but his eyes were cold as he looked at Chris. “That one sure buzzes in a man’s gut.”
Effe grimaced painfully and held up an unsteady hand.
“Please, I don’t want to be a source of…a disagreement between you men,” she said softly. “The fact is, Chris and I have a bitter past. Eight years ago, we parted rather badly, and I don’t blame him for feeling the way he does about me. In fact, I couldn’t go to Tunis again because of this same incident that happened between us. I just received startling news from my twin sister, Eyram.”
Chris looked sharply at her, and his eyes became dangerous slits. Effe saw how his huge hands balled into fists as he glared at her with a vicious look in his eyes.
“Now she has a twin sister,” he said calmly. “How you can lie, Effe Kedem, or Mabel, or whoever the fuck you are!”
“Goddamn it, Chris!” Wachipa retorted.
“And you shut the fuck up!” Chris hissed as he pinned Wachipa with his very cold eyes. “You can’t stand the way I behave now, huh? Why don’t you get the fuck out of here and find somewhere else to sit?”
“Chris, please, I beg of you!” Effe said miserably. “Please, let me tell you the truth as it is, please.”
“You’re not capable of truth, Effe Kedem!” Chris hissed at her fiercely as he leaned forward. “Your dark soul alone makes Lucifer seem like an angel.”
And for one very brief moment, his handsome face was a reflection of deep inner conflict, a profusion of confusion and something quite strange, almost a look of sheer helplessness as he stared at the beautiful woman in front of him.
Wailer looked from Chris to Effe, and then he spoke slowly in his booming voice.
“Jeez, Chrissy! Is this the girl you talked about…the one you loved and who was playing you? Effe?”
Chris looked at Wailer, and his face was that of a lost little boy, his helplessness almost impossible to control now.
“Yeah, she’s the one, buddy,” Chris said softly. “The only girl I ever loved with the very core of me, a girl whose smile warmed me like the heart of poems, the girl whose touch melted every lethargic blood cell in my body…the woman I adored, cherished and loved so much that breath was impossible without her. The girl who hurt me as no other human would ever be capable of! There she sits, Effe Kedem, with all her beauty and sweetness, and yet, as corrosive as the worst venom ever created!”
And his passion was so deep, so real, so alive that Effe’s throat constricted, and slow tears dripped unheeded down her cheeks. Here, caught with his guard down, unable to cloak his deep passion with the veil of hatred, Effe saw his pain, and felt his agony.
And for the very first time, she really understood just how deeply she had hurt this man.
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