Invisible Tears: A Novel on Truth Dressed in Fiction

By Dumo Kaizer J Oruobu

Sepiribo read the cryptic message on the screen of the telephone for the seventh time. He finally concluded that it must have been rightly addressed to him and that it came from the owner of the telephone through which it had been sent to him three days before the date at which he had decided to read it for the seventh time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Nov 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482876772

Dumo Kaizer J Oruobu

DUMO KAIZER JOHNNY ORUOBU was born in Ogurama in Degema District of Nigeria’s Rivers State of Th e Niger Delta Region to Christie and Chief Kaizer John Oruobu on September 22 in 1952. He studied at Baptist Day School, Old Bakana, Zixton Grammar School, Ozubulu, Government Comprehensive Secondary School, Borikiri, County Grammar School, Ikwerre-Etche and Baptist High School, Port Harcourt between 1959 and 1973; and in 1975 went on to study English Language and Literature at Nigeria’s Prestige University Of Ibadan, graduating in November, 1978. He is an accomplished Singer, Poet, Inspirational Speaker and Preacher of Th e Word of God. He is a Prize Writer in all the genres, an accomplished Print, Radio and Television Journalist and is fi rmly rooted in Entertainment, Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations. He has written well over eighty Novels out of which sixteen have been published between 2016 and 2018. He is a Fellow of Nigeria’s Institute Of Corporate Administration and is a Member Of Th e Nigerian Institute Of Public Relations. He holds two Traditional Chieftaincy Titles – Anyawo XI Of Ogurama and Amaibi Dokibo Se Erena XII Of Kalabari. He loves Travels, People and Makes friends very easily.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Chief Dumo Johnny Oruobu.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 A Mystery Suitor On The Horizon. Questions

Chapter 2 On The Loose

Chapter 3 A Cow Ready For The Slaughter Slab

Chapter 4 A Prostitute Without Borders

Chapter 5 A Husband At War

Chapter 6 The Motion Of The Waters Of The World

Chapter 7 A Plethora Of Strange Text Messages

Chapter 8 Why Do Certain Good Men And Women Behave In Certain Bad Ways?

Chapter 9 A Heart Saul’s Sore

Chapter 10 Lessons Of The Lives Of Amos And Hosea

Chapter 11 Do As You Hear Told You

Chapter 12 You Cannot Stop Until You Have To Stop

Chapter 13 No More The Man I Used To Know

Chapter 14 A Fall From Grace To Disgrace

Chapter 15 Under A Mango Tree In The Deep Suburb. Why Throw All Caution To The Winds?

DEDICATION

To all those who cry with their fellow men and women if and when they cry, and do not take pleasure in seeing anyone in tears or pains.

To God Almighty for making it possible for me to write it.

Dumo Oruobu

November 25, 2015

Port Harcourt, NIGERIA.

CHAPTER-ONE

A MYSTERY SUITOR ON THE HORIZON. QUESTIONS

Sepiribo read the cryptic message on the screen of the telephone for the seventh time and finally concluded that it must have been rightly addressed to him and that it came from the owner of the telephone through which it had been sent to him three days before the date at which he had decided to read it for the seventh time.

He knew that the figure was not correct, which was exactly why he had doubted it’s source in the first place. The figure was not correct. He told himself what should have happened if he had remitted what he considered to be the correct sum at the time he wanted to in order to have a clean break with Kalabene – a break not disturbed by any interference that could lead to anything – anything that might not be planned in advance to develop. In furtherance of the same cause which he told himself was noble, he made up his mind to remit not just the sum he had been requested to pay back, but also a reasonable additional sum. But that could become the problem or hurdle that he could not surmount as easily as that of his readiness and willingness to make the initial outstanding payment he had been requested to pay. How much more should he pay? He asked himself. Should he pay the principal sum separately from the amount he wanted to add to it or he should also pay both at the same time? He asked himself. He could not come by any definitive answer. He looked ahead of him, but without looking at anything in particular, and presently he shut his eyes with his pen in his right hand. What signal would paying the extra sum give to Kalabene? He asked himself. Would it not signal to her that he was recapitulating? Or that he was sending her an olive branch in a very subtle way? If she saw it that way, would she not be correct? Would it not also be the correct reflection or interpretation of his own intention or objective of doing it? Then would Kalabene herself not see it for what it was and also reciprocate the gesture or see it as her having broken him and dance a victory – or a celebration dance? How would he know whether that would be the case or not? He was well aware that Kalabene had two bank accounts, the last of which he himself had opened for her. Should he make the payment he was contemplating to make into the first Account which she, or maybe, someone else had opened for her? Or he should pay it into the account that he opened for her? That he himself or who opened for her? He heard himself asking inside of him. By whom? By whom? Or should the payment be made through the Account that he himself opened for her, indeed, a little over a year ago with his promise of funding it monthly – a promise he had found difficult to fulfill, not because he did not want to, or because he did not have the funds to do so, but because of extraneous circumstances – other factors he did not even want to think about? Would paying the money into any of those two accounts not be subject to, and not be subjected to further interpretative readings? What if he should split the total sum in two – split it into two equal or unequal halves – one half into Account number one, and the other half into Account number two? What would such an action be interpreted to mean or to signal? He asked himself.

Questions. Questions and more questions came to his mind, no answer coming for any one of them. And then he remembered what he had learnt in school about the inability of Philosophers to take or to make decisions or to do so in good enough time in any circumstance of their lives, and how, as a result, he had told himself that he would like to have and to acquire their wisdom, their intellect, their understanding and insight all put together, but that he would not like to be like anyone of them when it came to the aspect of their not being able to take decisions on any given issues, and quickly, no matter what those issues were or how urgent they were to be addressed. What had he become here? He asked himself. A Philosopher? He was not sure. A quick decision maker? That too he could not answer without delaying – holding on for a while to think through properly.

He decided to put that subject away from his mind. It should be allowed to be pending. He said as he opened his eyes and started to scribble something on the paper in front of him.

He was interrupted by the beeping sound of his telephone. Here was another text message. He told himself. Another text message on another telephone line belonging to him. He could not make meaning out of it immediately, even after reading through it three times. And then it started to become clearer to him. It must be a text message being sent to a primary recipient and had been forwarded to him either by the addressee or the sender as a secondary recipient. He thought.

The sender was apparently unable to make contact with him and had enlisted the support of the recipient for her to let him see the message. The sender of the message would be coming into town that weekend. The two of them should know, it said – he and his wife Kalabene. The Message said after talking about how Sepiribo could not be reached. That also sparked off a chain of conjectures in Sepiribo – conjectures leading to questions and more questions once again. Why wouldn’t he ask questions? He asked himself. He was a Journalist, afterall, wasn’t he? He wondered, answering Yes, that is the truth, almost immediately. And who in life is there, Journalist or no Journalist who does not ask questions at one time or the other? Nobody. He answered as soon as he finished asking that question. Nobody. Everyone asks questions every time anywhere and everywhere in the world. Everywhere in the world without any exceptions. People asked questions everywhere and all the time.

Time was ticking away – time, the only phenomenon mankind knows which does not turn back and which no one can retrieve once it is gone. The Lady who sent the Message saying that she was coming into town was a Princess, the first daughter of his friend three states away from where he was. She would ask after the only person in his life that she knew. She might also want to stay a night or two or three nights with him at his house, no matter where her final destination would be. What answer was he going to give to her about the absence of Kalabene? Where would he say that Bene or Kala, the two short forms of the name Kalabene, had gone? When was she expected to come back? Why don’t you call her on the phone so that I can talk to her to tell her that I am here? The Princess of Benin Kingdom would not only ask but insist. And Kalabene might not pick his calls. She would not. What would that signal to the Princess whose father respected him very much, and by which token she too held him in very high esteem? Questions and questions. And yet more questions. And then the Princess sent another text message to him saying that she had come into town, enquiring after the address at which she could see them – he and Kalabene. He faxed the address to her without wasting time, and knew very sadly that he was on the way to facing a problem he knew was there but did not want to face at all. And time moved on on it’s path – on it’s unstoppable path, each passing second compounding his problems. He looked vacantly across the panorama in front of him for a very long time and then hissed and closed his eyes.

Sepiribo momentarily opened his eyes and closed them again, and then decided to do something that he had said he would not do. He made a telephone call to Kalabene through one of her GSM lines. But he quickly cut it off as soon as it started ringing. No! He said. He was not going to talk to her. No! He should not. It would be worse for him to accommodate the opprobrium and the trauma if she herself recognized his voice and or saw his GSM number and identified it as belonging to him and as a result refused to talk to him. That would be much worse for him to stomach than anything else.

The telephone he used to call her number rang a few minutes after he had cut it off from ringing. He looked at the number. It was the number he had called last – the number belonging to Kalabene. He looked at it again and kept his gaze fixed there until it stopped ringing. The ringing came back again two more times, thereafter, and on the last occasion he picked the call but said nothing inside the microphone. He only listened, just to be sure that it was Kalabene herself who was calling and who also answered. She was the one. The line went off presently.

Sepiribo decided to do something which he had never learnt from any study situation before, happy to note that she did not know about his having bought that special number he had acquired along with three other lines like it two weeks ago. He had never used it to call any of her numbers before. So she must be wondering who the owner of such a magic number could be. Maybe a new Suitor desperately looking for her to play ball with her? Maybe. He said looking very excited. He sent a message to the number that he had called last which had also returned his call – the three calls he had refused to pick. He knew that it belonged to Kalabene his wife – his estranged wife

You gave me your contact last week through a friend and partner of mine who I told how much I have been admiring you. Fair one, is it possible, by any stroke of luck, good luck for us to meet and to discuss? I will appreciate it.

He pressed the send button and in a matter of seconds he got a feedback that the message had been delivered. Good! He told himself. Good. Let me see what happens.

Half an hour, thereafter, the number to which he sent the message was back on the airwaves. He did not answer. It called him on the number through which he sent the text message three, four and five times in rapid succession. He did not answer. He did not answer because he did not want to be identified by his voice which everyone who knew him recognized instantly.

He decided to reach the caller via another text message. He could not talk where he was, because of the nature of what he was doing and because of the people who were all around him. He wrote.

Could she be kind enough to send him a reply also via a text message to let him know if the meeting he had asked for was possible, and if so, where and at what time would she want for them to meet? He would be immensely grateful. He said, and clicked it away. A reply came almost instantly.

Who is the friend and Partner who gave you my contact?

She asked. He replied also instantly pleading with her to please allow him to defer the answer to that enquiry to the time when they would meet. She sent five more text Messages, saying in the last three messages that she would only agree to meet with him if he told her the name of the friend who passed her phone number to him. That ding dong went on until he wrote to her to say that he was a very discrete person by nature, and, therefore, that he would not like to break any promise he had made to anyone except if there was a compelling reason for him to do so. Here, he said, there was not such a compelling reason for him to break his promise to someone who was only doing him a favour. He would not blame her for being very very careful, cautious and security conscious, he said, telling her how much he wanted to meet her to