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Fiction
Love and
the Mercenary
a short story by
Chioma
Iwunze
Adaure stooped at the doorjamb of Romano’s one
bedroom flat inspecting the contents of the
polyethylene bag he had handed her. There were:
a huge chunk of goat meat, half a loaf of bread,
three tins of corned beef, three tins of milk, a
cup of salt and some cups of rice. She looked up
at the ruggedly handsome face of the mercenary
who stood in front of her; his strong, tall body
towering just over her equally tall feminine
frame.
“Tank you.” She said rather shyly in her
Igbo-inflected English accent.
Romano didn’t reply. And when his dreamy eyes
searched hers thoroughly, he recognized the
familiar agony of war, sorrow of death and the
fear of uncertainty: they all lurked behind the
glitter that belied her large, soft and
beautiful eyes. He had fought too many wars to
be deceived by her glitzy façade; for he
understood very well that in war torn areas the
women were cheap. A person with a loaf of bread
could not be infra dig to them, not even he was
inflicted with the worst sort of disease.
Born Antonio Romano Sergio to Isabelle Lucia
Sebastián, a half –American, half- Italian
mother exactly nine months after the Civil war
ended on the 1st of April, 1939, in
Spain. He had no father, she had told him
severally even when he had held a stiletto to
her neck; he had been only fourteen years old:
“You can slit my damned throat if you like. What
difference would it make? I died a long time
ago. In fact I died the moment I conceived you,
the moment that worthless sperm donor you call
your father walked out on you and I: he walked
out on us for Christ’s sake! There was a bloody
war; I stayed back because of him. Anyway, no
good deed goes unpunished.”
Romano would fall on his buttocks, weak to the
bones, his entire body quivering feverishly not
because he was scared but because he became more
confused every time his mother broke down in
tears and begun narrating this sad tale.
“How many times do I have to tell you? The sick
bastard asked me to flush your worthless being
down the pit latrine. Perhaps I should have
listened to the heartless idiot. At least I
could have had a better life without a
never-do-well of a son who holds a knife to my
neck threatening me whenever he gets a migraine
or feels depressed!”
Quickly looking away, he lit his cigarette and
took a long desperate drag. Adaure quickly
stepped away to the flower bush that bordered
the front of the house. She frowned, cast her
eyes over the queen of the night plant, and
started to finger its dark green leaves and the
creamy white petals of the flower. The flower
was almost scentless in the warm evening sun; it
was hard to believe this same flower emitted
such heavenly perfumes at night. Romano smiled
in admiration at her simplicity: he had used the
cigarette as a repellant to ward her off because
his hands were already itching to trace lines on
her ebony-complexioned apple cheeked face, along
her slender nose. . .
But he had to go and continue training of the
commandos for a guerrilla attack on the Nigerian
Federal troops who had been sighted not far
away.
***
Adaure
gathered courage and looked up at him; he was
blowing a white ring of smoke towards the
ceiling. She was seething with anger. She
wondered why such a handsome, kind-hearted man
derived so much joy from smoking in a tropical
country such as was Biafra; she wanted to ask
him to quit; she wanted to ask him why he had
left the comfort of his country, the company of
his family and friends, to come to Africa to
fight for a disorganized group of people seeking
secession. There was so much she wanted to ask
him and she was confident - irrespective of his
stern looks - that he would answer all of them
but she could not. She couldn’t ask him, not
because she was afraid (the experiences of war
had taught her that the easiest way to stay
alive was to dare death) but because she could
not speak English language fluently; neither
could she understand his nasally spoken English.
Moreover, it was none of her business. Her duty
was to give him sensual satisfaction and his, to
provide her with the basic needs for survival.
After all, it was only a war affair.
***
Impulsively, she turned and walked towards the
road that led to the rented one-room apartment
where she lived with her four year old son,
Chukwudi, who was now recovering - due to
Romano’s generosity- from kwashiorkor.
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