Waiting for Tunji

Do you want to know what wasted love means?

Do you want to imagine what it feels like?

Do you want to hear my story? No?

Okay, here it goes.

25th December 2001.

A remarkable Christmas Day. Birthday of Jesus, a man I always heard about, a name my aunties yelled at sudden happenings, a time for sharing gifts, and a period where my little cousins back in Nigeria won’t stop wishing there was snow. I wish they could come here to feel how cold it is.

I wore my favorite dress. I polished my shoes and washed my hair. I didn’t have much. Not even neighbors that cared about me. My family members were all in Nigeria at that time and most of them, I wasn’t on good terms with.

I put on my floral cotton dress, wore my coat — the fluffy one Tunji bought when we first got here. It still smelled of me, of us, of the world back then and what it used to be. I beamed at the mirror. It was a good day. I looked into the mirror every day to imagine a tall figure hugging me from behind. Oko mi, smiling and teasing me. His eyes gazing into mine, his lips so perfectly lined, his birthmark by his brow embroidered by the Creator.

I smiled because I was taking the next train to the city he was. I saved for this day. 25th December 2001.

1971

“I hereby declare Mr. Olatunji Ajayi guilty on the counts of…”

I remember it so clearly in the oyinbo man’s voice who struggled to pronounce my husband’s name correctly: “Toon-jey”. I remember how the hot drops from my eyes were falling on my cheeks. I remember how Vodka burnt my throat and filled up my belly and eyes, clouding my mind and making me forget he was away. But love is unconditional isn’t it?

My mother cries on the phone for me to come back home and get married to someone else. I have someone for you, she said after a few months.

“No! I will wait. I don’t know him, I don’t want to know him.”

“He’s from a rich home, he has seen your picture. I will send you his own very soon.”

“I’m not in it for the money or his looks. Tunji is my one and only, mama.”

“You are wasting your life on someone that is a criminal. Aye mi! He did not do wrong in his motherland, he went overseas to embarrass his people. God saved you that you are far away. I would have come there and shown you that I am still your mother.”

We didn’t talk much after that.

25th December 2001

I was old and a lot had changed. The last time Tunji saw me, I was complaining about cramps. Now I don’t even remember what they feel like. I missed naming unborn children. I missed wanting to have a child. Tolu/ Mide/ Damola may have been bringing a man home for us to bless by now. I missed late nights and listening to Fela Kuti. I missed feeling strong and laughing hard.

Tunji made me feel pains. Good pains. Headaches from laughing too hard, soreness from sex, heartaches from worrying about his whereabouts. I missed the young days. Now my breasts droop and they haven’t been suckled on. I’m waiting for the good pain that I haven’t felt in a while. I’m outside and my Tunji is on his way to come see me! It feels like brand new love again. Ah, my Tunji.

Now Tunji is here. Everything I longed for is here standing in front of me. He’s hugging me, crying on me, but I don’t know. That pain is back — of worrying about where he is, the pain I don’t like, the pain I don’t want, the pain I thought today would heal. There’s this man with a tall figure in front of me that looks exactly like my husband. I wish I could find the Tunji I knew and was in love with. Where is my Tunji?