Lilly Loveless laughed. “How funny,” she said. “And they believe it?”
“Men are so easily flattered you can’t imagine the sort of things they fall for,” Britney replied, and continued with the story. “Amongst girls, it is a common presupposition that every girl who goes out with a married man has a permanent boyfriend, as every girl is interested in a more meaningful relationship than most married men can offer, however much they claim they love you. But girls also know that you can’t just leave a Mboma like that. You have to do it with tact, else you are in trouble. Mbomas are known to curse, crash and crush without mercy, when betrayed.”
“To avoid all the tensions, anger, beatings, claims for gifts to be returned, and the odd passion killing now and again?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Britney.
“Sometimes a relationship is not true until it has been tested by betrayal,” remarked Lilly Loveless.
“Yes,” said Britney. “In this case however, everything went on smoothly, as Emma successfully juggled Innocent and her student friend, until she met and fell for a young ‘bushfaller’ with lovely dreadlocks who introduced himself as ‘a professional footballer in Muzunguland who was back home to chill out after a hectic season’. Bushfallers are guys who have been abroad and accumulated enough money and material possessions to make their weight felt back home, especially with young singletons. Topping the bushfaller league are footballers, who are generally the well-paid.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but could you tell me more about bushfallers?” Lilly Loveless was hungry for more.
“What else?” asked Britney, “apart from the fact that more and more Mimbolanders feel that salvation is possible these days only through going to Muzunguland or elsewhere in the world associated with milk and honey, where most of them slave away in very difficult and often subhuman conditions, but which isn’t deterrent enough for those with ambitions of bushfalling? Bushfalling has become so common that someone can be here with you, and a minute later you hear he or she has fallen bush.”
“Why do they call it bushfalling?”
“It is a metaphor for hunting, I think. Those who go to Muzunguland are like hunters who go into the bush to hunt for game. And just like the hunter returns to the village at the end of the hunt, the bushfaller is expected to return to Mimboland to show family and friends what in terms of money and material possessions they have gained. Those who don’t return and who don’t repatriate money and possessions are not well regarded, just as those who return empty-handed. A hunter is a good hunter when there is a catch. Similarly, only bushfallers with something to show back home shall be recognised and celebrated. A hunter is also expected to be generous with their catch, hence the common saying here in Mimboland which goes thus: ‘Bushfaller weh ye no di leak like kenja fowl by the time ye go back for whitemankontri, mean say dat bushfaller na Japanese handbrake.’”
“Which means?”
“A bushfaller who is not leaking like water in the perforated basket in which fowls are carried locally by the time he returns to Muzunguland, means that he is far from being generous.”
“Wow, that’s great,” said Lilly Loveless, “an invitation for bushfallers to make their success collective, eh? What are local attitudes towards bushfallers who don’t make it or who disappear for good?”
“I don’t know if you’d understand, but I want to quote my auntie who has a very negative attitude towards Muzunguland, especially in the way it transforms those who embrace it through bushfalling. She says: ‘Whiteman Kontri di over spoil pikin dem. Na some dorti place. Man di die 20 year, mama die, papa die, pikin no come. Na which kana place be dat? Pikin di comot for Whiteman Kontri come for try for sell hi papa hi house for here. Na which kana fall bush be dat? Better make ma pikin fall bush for backside house…”
Britney attempted a translation for Lilly Loveless who took down notes. Satisfied, Lilly Loveless told Britney she could continue with her story.
“This bushfaller brought foreign currency, a nice car, and promised to take Emma to the altar. A dream come true – walking down the aisle with a man of your age or thereabouts. She was so excited that she defied all odds to date the bushfaller. Not long afterwards, Innocent learned of the relationship from none other than Emma and was very bitter.”
“Emma herself told him about the relationship with the bushfaller?” Lilly Loveless was surprised.
“Yes, she did,” replied Britney.
“That was courageous of her, a sign that she had fallen deeply in love, I suppose.”
“No, it was a sign of confusion, I think,” Britney corrected. “She always had this dream of marrying someone her age in a formal church ceremony. And as if to increase her chances of fulfilling her dream, she had served as bridesmaid at so many weddings that some of her friends had nicknamed her ‘the professional bridesmaid’. It was only reluctantly that she went out with Innocent, so you can imagine her disappointment when he still would not divorce his wife to marry her.”
“Already several times before, she had challenged him to do something about his marriage, with words like these: ‘Of course your marriage is a problem for me, even though you say that your feelings for me are not second to another love. The fact remains that I am forced to share you with at least one other woman, who occupies a very special and privileged position in your life. Is that not something to feel sad and jealous about? I try to refrain from knowing more about her than absolutely necessary, as I know that if I start to try to imagine who your wife is and what your relationship with her entails, I will be overcome by an obsessive hunger to know every detail, feeling myself in competition with her, forcing you to prove again and again that you care for me – a fact that is not all that self-evident considering the fact that you spend almost every night with her and not with me. The less I know about your wife, the easier it is for me to ignore her presence, to see her as a kind of institution, but not so much as a person who is in my way. And though you don’t like the word ‘mistress’, I am well aware that my position would always be precisely that: secret meetings, stolen time, anonymous rooms in resting places, no integration in every day life because of the clandestine status of our relationship, constant jealousy on my part, constant on your part that I might be swept off my feet by some suitor who didn’t need to hide me away…’”
“So what did she tell him when the bushfaller came along?”
“She wrote him a note, a copy of which she showed me: ‘Dear Innocent,’ she wrote, ‘I know you love and care for me, which makes me want to say something that I would not be able to stand by when the time comes and consequently I become so confused. I just can’t be a second wife or keep going out with you as if your wife was not there. The fact is that I love and respect you so much and therefore believe that you deserve the very best in life. You deserve to be happy, successful and prosperous and nothing should come between you and all these things not even me. However, I have my own plans and dreams which I selfishly cling onto. Like you rightly said, and I admit I want a future in which someone will stand and wait for me at the end of the aisle. But this is not going to be just anybody like you think. I will be looking for something in particular in that person and that something will be all you are as a person. The question I imagine you will ask is, why I have refused to take you yet look for somebody like you. All I will say is that, I am not strong enough to live above what society thinks and that will not make you as happy as you deserve to be.’ That’s the note she sent Innocent.”
“So Innocent must have learnt of the bushfaller from elsewhere and only indirectly from Emma,”
