LITMIR.BIZ

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thoughts he hadn’t the courage to translate into words.

      “Mimboland na Mimboland,” said Bobinga Iroko, when the husband, unable to bear the stares, abandoned his food as well, paid his bill and walked out to face his second surprise of the evening: his wife had vandalised his fancy new car beyond recognition.

      “I know them well,” Bobinga Iroko added.

      “You do?” Lilly Loveless was interested.

      “They don’t like me, but they are used to my pieces and I know them very well. The man hates my guts as a journalist. He once accused me of publishing a critical paper about him, when I discovered that a timber exploration concession registered under his name was in effect being exploited by ruthless Muzunglanders without any respect for the tropics they claimed to adore, nor for the local communities that have preserved the forest for thousands of years through religious taboos and rituals.”

      “He who harms the environment can’t be a friend of mine,” said Lilly Loveless.

      “I’m sure the Muzungulander business interests he represents pay him enough to live on, and by our local standards, to pass for a very rich man with a reputation for talking women into taking off their clothes. He is known locally as ‘Lovebird Masa Moni’, ‘the youngest living old man’ and also as ‘l’homme des belles femmes’, because whatever comes in as money, he shows it off in ostentatious consumption with young, voluptuous, beautiful girls. He can’t see a juicy fruit without wanting to eat it. His wife, who dramatized here a while ago, is not the only wife he has. She is the third and youngest – ‘My Bubbly Brown Sugar’ he called her when he wooed her, and is still doing her studies at UM. She married him three years ago, at a wedding that was termed the wedding of the year here in Sakersbeach. There is nothing he didn’t do to impress her, and there is nothing she didn’t do to impress her friends. It is probably one of those friends now seeking to undo her in the war of the thongs…” Bobinga Iroko was speaking like a tape recording, full of insights.

      “You know what a thong is, don’t you?” Bobinga Iroko had a mischievous smile in his eyes.

      “No, tell me what it is,” Lilly Loveless laughed and took out her pen. She was beginning to absorb Bobinga Iroko’s every word like the way blotting paper absorbs ink.

      “It has more material than a G-String.”

      “Really?”

      “Anyone who has done window shopping or been at the market when a bale of second-hand underwear is being opened knows these things.”

      “Did you see the ‘read my hips’ manner in which she walked out?”

      “A woman who walks with such a seductive sway is unlikely to be ovulating.”

      “You mean likely…”

      “That’s what I used to mean until I read this piece in the New Scientist…”

      “You do really ferret, don’t you?” Lilly Loveless was impressed.

      Bobinga Iroko laughed out his modesty, and added: “Here in Mimboland, one either has an MBA or is an MBA.”

      “What do you mean? Everyone is into business administration or something?”

      Bobinga Iroko laughed before explaining. “An MBA here means Married but Available.”

      Lilly Loveless exploded in laughter. “That’s very funny.”

      “Yes, MBA is our business: we either are married but available, or have someone who is married but available.”

      “Bobinga Iroko included?”

      “No comment.” He laughed. “Do you know how to determine whether someone is having an affair or not?”

      “Tell me.”

      “You know someone is having an affair when they feel unusually happy and light within themselves, as if they’ve met with Angel Gabriel. For a woman, she starts walking as if she’s got springs on her heels, her underwear suddenly begins to look more and more like thongs and G-Strings, she starts watching every word she says as she fears betraying her little new secret, and if you watch closely, you begin to see funny marks on prominent aspects of her anatomy.”

      “You need to be intimately close to notice that about her.”

      “Of course, I meant the husband or a very close friend,” replied Bobinga Iroko. “Otherwise, what is there for a perfect stranger seeking to know who is having or not having an affair? Except an idle Muzungu researcher called Loveless.”

      “Your wife plays around too?”

      “Have I told you I am married?” replied Bobinga Iroko, evasively.

      Lilly Loveless smiled insistently, not knowing why getting any personal information from this man was like pulling a tooth.

      “OK, let’s suppose I have a wife,” he laughed. “I would say she doesn’t need to play around. I’ll string her G-spot every time. I know how to please her. She comes every time. How many men could do that for her? She’d get impatient with a new guy fooling around to figure her out.”

      “Why hypothetical?”

      “It is better that way. Then you can explore different scenarios. Reality is much too fixed, don’t you think? To fall in love is immediately to dread the loss of the object of desire, so better to be hypothetically married than actually married, I think, hypothetically speaking, of course.”

      “I give up,” said Lilly Loveless. Smiling, she asked: “And men – how do you know they are having an affair?”

      “With men, the signs are that suddenly, they start being conscious of their dressing, going on mission a lot, and calling their wives names they’ve never heard before, especially when dreaming or making love. These days, a sure way of sniffing an affair is by reading through your partner’s sent text messages. And if your partner is always erasing his or her messages, know you have a smoking gun. Treat as suspect a partner who lives in fear of text messages and whose inbox and sent folders are always empty.”

      “Why exactly do people frown on cheating, especially by women? It can reluctantly be tolerated in men, but women, never. If women cheat despite the fact that cheating is not granted them at all, what could be the reasons?”

      “In Mimboland, women cheat for various reasons, major amongst which is the need to live a life that is not theirs. The pressures on them to dress well, do their hair, buy this and that, be here or there in a class and in places above their means or attainments, push them into the open arms of affairs with men who are either pretending or honest about bringing them to consumer paradise.”

      “Surely, that can’t be the only reason women cheat,” Lilly Loveless protested.

      “You are not as good a listener as I thought,” Bobinga Iroko rebuked, playfully. “Consumerism is a major reason, but there are others. Some women cheat because their men have done it, leaving them unhappy, lonely or feeling neglected. They also cheat simply because they, in essence, are just like men, wanting great sex and variety beyond the monotony and ability of regular partners to provide, however creative these might be at self-reconfiguration.” Lilly Loveless wrote frantically in her notebook. She liked what Bobinga Iroko said. “And why, according to you, are women seldom open and bold about their affairs? Why don’t they boast of these in public in the same way as men do?”

      “The answer is simple, I think,” replied Bobinga Iroko. “Vis-à-vis one’s partner, the lying, economy with the truth, clandestinity and hide-and-seek that come with having an affair is like the turn-on exhibitionists get from knowing that they are watched, and together with the sex, must make affairs really pleasurable and difficult to call off. Another reason might simply be that women are less animated by the trophy mentality that drives men, so they don’t display and parade their affairs the way a sportsman does his trophies.”

      “You are a real expert, aren’t you?” said Lilly

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