Eighty-Eight

The dawn after Ira leaves for South Africa, Effe enters Chris' room.

He is sitting on the floor when she enters. She sees an inhumane look of sheer malice on his face. He growls like a beast, his face absolutely abnormal.

He comes off the floor like a cat with his hands curled into fists.

He is indeed a most frightening sight, but Effe is not afraid of him. She has only unbridled love for him. Tears of agony come to her eyes that the man she loves so much has been reduced to such a crazy state, that the handsome Chris can become such a terrible animal.

But no more.

They will both go crazy and die... or she is going to make him well again so that she can love him with the last breath in her. Chris rushes at her with his fist drawn back to strike her.

She faces him calmly.

"Go on, Chris-Love," she says calmly. "Hit me if it will make you feel better. Hit me with all the power you have."

He stops.

She can see the conflicting emotions on his face, and then he screams loudly into her face.

"HYPOCRITE! LIAR! BETRAYER!"

Effe nods, and her lips tremble.

"Yes, Chris-Love. Guilty on all counts," she says in a little lost voice. "But I love you. With all my heart, Chris. And I'm here for you. You can kill me if you want!"

He screams again and again, and then he turns away savagely and begins to pace the room restlessly. Effe walks inside, and then she sits on the bed.

"I'm not afraid of you, Chris, my love, because I believe in the power of our love. We've been through fire, you and me, because of this love between us, and we've survived it. I will be visiting you every day, Chris-Love. I took some months off because I'm pregnant, and I'm going to give birth to our baby. I wanted to move in here with you, but it seems it's against the regulations. Jon Fii wants to send you to the asylum for help, but I know you're not mad, Chris-Love. You just need to know that I love you. I refused, and told him I'll come in everyday to take care of you."

Chris glares at her and makes whimpering sounds, and then he covers his ears with his hands, sits in one corner of the room, and hides his face in the wall.

"What do you think we're going to have, my love? A boy or a girl? Anyway, I burnt the signed divorce papers. You see, the judge only granted my application for divorce. What it meant was that the divorce process could start and after all the necessary documents are signed and settlements agreed upon there would be a final hearing where the Judge would grant the divorce and a divorce certificate issued to that effect. Since I never returned the documents, that final hearing did not happen. I have withdrawn the application so we are still hitched. We are still married. I am still your wife and I'm going to be till the sun shines no more. See, I'm wearing my rings. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making you happy, Chris-Love. And woe unto any woman who comes between us...I'll scratch out their eyes. As for me, I know no man will dare come near me because you will GojuFist their heads."

Chris turns his face and glares at her.

He is absolutely incensed with fury.

"LIAR!," he screams. "HYPOCRITE!! BETRAYER!"

Tears fall down Effe's cheeks, but she laughs.

"Shame on you, Chris. I won't mind you. You're also a betrayer! Look at your big fucking head! I've never slept with any man but you! You're the one who always manages to get between the legs of women on every occasion you think you're hurt, silly justification," she says as her tears fall silently. "Meanwhile you don't even pick sane women...only crazy women! You're also a liar, a betrayer and a hypocrite! If you ever use that excuse to get between the legs of another woman, I will castrate you! Look at your big head! Hmm, I think that's all for now, except that I love you so much and I'm dying to see that Chris coming out and holding me and loving me."

Chris sits on the floor again, staring at her with curiosity.

He puts his arms around his knees and puts his head on his arms, looking at her with confusion. She gets up to go to him, but he snarls and growls a warning, and she sits back down on the bed.

After a while, as the sadness assails her and makes her want to cry, she gets up and begins to clean the room.

***

Effe visits him every day now.

She continues to clean the room and keep it aerated.It is a slow and painful period for her. She then begins to bring him food. By the end of the month, he is eating her food, and allowing her to sit beside him, but he still would not speak.

She sees traces of tears on his face though, through all that thick beard. Every inch of him seems to be overgrown with hair, but he refuses to come out of the room. She had taken a barber to him, but Chris had gone totally insane and so the poor man had fled from the room.

She had once entered the room but had not found him anywhere, and she had gone crazy with agony, thinking he had left home again, but she had found him finally in the bathroom.

He had been sitting in the bath, slowly soaping his stinking body.

They took it as a good sign, until he began taking a bath almost every hour. This was a great worry, but he had eventually stopped after two weeks, but he continued to bath at least twice a day, making the stench disappear. By the end of the second month, he is calm and changes clothes after a bath, but he still would not shave. He does not speak to her, but he has stopped yelling at her. When she tentatively suggests that they should visit Junior, tears come to his eyes, and he nods.

And that day and several days afterwards they make visits to their son. She is now very close with his family, and they all come around regularly, especially Stan. And of course, Wailer Vroom is still around, helping out.

Wailer had made a passionate appeal at the annual GojuFist Convention, and the governing body had reluctantly given Chris two more months to get on his feet and announce his plans as far as the GojuFist Career.

Stan comes to visit his little brother almost every day, and like Effe, he stays and speaks to him. Once Stan had spoken about one of Roland's birthdays and about how Chris had eaten all the birthday cake their mother baked during the night and they had ended up sticking candles in a loaf of bread for the birthday.

Chris had chuckled at this, and a little smile had split his bushy face, and then tears had rolled down his eyes.

"Rollie," Chris had said tenderly. "I miss Rollie."

It was the first words he had uttered in months, and this had brought tears to Effe's and Stan's eyes.

"I know you do, little bro," Stan had said passionately. "Dear Lord, don't we all! I know you do, Chrissy."

And then, one night, it happens.

Chris is alone in the room. He gets up and walks to the wardrobe. He stands on a stool and takes down a huge bag from the top of the wardrobe. It contains some of his clothes.

Chris unzips the bag and pours out the clothes on the bed. He then reaches into a seam at the bottom of the bag and brings out a gun. He had illegally purchased it for self-defense after the night Darlett had almost killed him. Chris begins to cry again as he checks the bullets in the clip and then snaps it into the gun. He walks to the window and stands gazing outside with the gun in his big hand.

Softly he begins to speak.

"I can't take it anymore, Champ. I'm very sorry, but I can't," he says, weeping. "Seeing you like that, supported by machines, and me being unable to help you...I just want to die, Champ!"

Chris Yaw Bawa, a lost man, a broken man, a shattered man, a man in pain, puts the gun to his temple. Suddenly, a cold wind begins to blow in the room, and the window blinds begin to flutter wildly. Chris weeps as he cocks the gun, and his forefinger curls around the trigger.

"Forgive me, Lord!" Chris Bawa whispers.