Ijeoma and Chioke

Sometimes it is hard to understand what draws one person to the next, or what keeps two people together.  In the case of Ijeoma and Chioke it appeared, at least to all who cared to think about it, that here there were two people who had a match made in heaven.
Few states of affairs are more dangerous, and few hobies more perilous, than that of trying to gauge the status of a marriage from the outside.  For some unknown reason it can be said, without a doubt, that people are most ingenuous when it comes to not airing their dirty linens in public.  By the smiles that are publicly exchanged, and the quivering lips, and the animated hand gesticulations, they couls appear to be on their honeymoon, for all one knows or cares.  Once out of the public glare, the insults are hurtled freely from one party to the next, and on occasion, these can escalate to even more intense violence.
To the outside eye, it was so with Ijeoma and Chioke.  He was a wealthy trader, who also, incidentally, possessed a college degree in architecture from the University of Nigeria in Enugu.  It was not that he was a bad architect, more an urgent need to feed his quickly expanding family that had made him take that desperate last leap into the world of the self employed.  Not that he had had much of a choice, for the family was literally starving to death anyway; it was just that any failure of the trading business would have lead to escalation of the rate of their descent into despair.  And, of course, it took a lot of faith; faith not so much in your own 'chi' as in Chukwu Himself, Jesu Christi.
For weeks the pickings at the dinner table had become slimmer and slimmer.  Their diet had gone down from eating meat every day, and at every meal, to barely being able to put meat on the table twice a week.  Chioke felt very inadequate about that; here he was a whole architect with a decent job with a private firm and he could barely feed his three children; to make matters worse there was fourth one on the way, who definitely was "God's own", for man certainly could not have concieved of him or her at a more inopportune time.  And so appropriately, the sprightly boy, totally unaware of the inconvenience he was causing, was baptized ' Nkechi' .  For his survival depended on Him for sure.
During those evenings at the dinner table, Ijeoma's eyes would slowly glaze over with the beginnings of a tear, as she hid her own emotion of confusion and sorrow.  Surely she was not exactly a nobody herself.  Afterall, although she had never liked school much she had been quite an industrious lady as far back as could be remembered.  She had managed to obtain her West African School Certificate in those old days and had even excelled so well as to score a grade three.  She had subsequently studied at the teacher training college of the Holy Rosary in Enugu.  At some point she had been convinced that she would become a nun ( because the nuns inthose days were all over the college).  However, Chioke had come along in her second year, and over the ensuing two years courtship she had quite fallen in love with him.
He was the kind of man that you could rely on, or at least he seemed then.  When he said he was coming, he came, and if he promised her something or the other he usually came through with it; moreover, what mad matters even better, they seemed to have this sense of peace when in each others company.  So much so that in the last few months prior to their wedding she found herself day dreaming even more and more about his ouch and the private things they often shared with one another.  Papa had been overwhelmed with joy the day Choke had come with his people to ask for her hand in marriage.  'Ndi Architect' he would bellow out in his loud way, and slap him on the back.  ( The fact was that Papa would have slapped any man on the back who was worth his salt, and also a catholic and seemed reasonable.)  Papa was no fool, there was a world teeming with young ladies out there.  Many who were far more beautiful and well educated than Ijeoma.  And it appeared that there were just not enough eligible bachelors to go around; and as such there were many beautiful ladies with impeccable reputations who simply stayed at home waiting for that introduction which would catapult her into marital bliss.

Although Papa never came right out and said it, protestants were different, and so here, far from the shores of Northern Ireland, there existed a suspicion between the two groups.  Oddly enough, which religion one belonged to depended on which missionary school you attended.  And it was fiercely defended once assumed.  And it was in this way that Papa Edward had become a catholic and had married Mama Elisabeth  also a catholic.

Chioke was the perfect son-in law.  He was from agood family( his father had been a permanent secretary both before and after the war, and his mother had been a teacher at Queen's school in Enugu.)  Mama Letitia had been a geography teacher and had now opened up her own primary school.  All these facts Papa Edward found very exciting.  " Perm Sec", he would shout as he was wont to do, " Nno O", " Bia lie nu, ehh.. What can we get you to drink? O stout tata or bu beer".
Mr. Okolo, the Permanent Secretary was educated in the Queens own country and found Papa Edward somewhat irritating.   Even more irritating to him was the fact that he himself who had spent six years in institutions of higher learning, yet it was Papa Edward the trader, with a mere standard six education, who could buy him 100 hundred times over.  However, as there were not many places where you could any longer visit and get a free beer, Mr. Pius Okolo would humbly sit down and drin his in- laws drinks whilst being forced to listen to him chatter about his business.