At first, the chores of cooking occupied the platoons but when the preparations were complete, the food left on the fire to cook, choruses filled the air. The songs were peculiar to Benue State, the features and folklore of the people of the state and Katsina Ala woven into them...

 

At some point, the Kegites, the Palm Wine Drinker’s club, took over; the lines of the platoons were crossed with members leaving their positions and flowing towards the Songito, Singer, and the Kegites, until all the Platoons, including those singing and dancing, commingled, becoming one body of dancing youths.

 

Tega and Amanda watched from a distance, seated on the veranda of the Administrative block, which overlooked the campfire site. Warmed by each other’s body heat, they let the songs wash over them.

 

They could hear and see Tunde in the thick of the singing crowd. A song ended and Tunde’s voice rose up; He shouted, “The gods are wise.” and began to lead the group in another Kegite song.

 

The night air was palpable with passion and fear. It was the last night before posting and fear hung in the air like bad breath.

 

For Amanda, the air was suffocating; she was inexplicably affected by thoughts of the day ahead, the passing out day when they would be posted out to take up their primary assignments.

 

It was a day of separation, and the prospect of being posted far from Tega was hard to contemplate, talk less of accepting. She shuddered as a shiver ran down her spine, making her weak all over.

 

She had suffered one separation and survived only because of her gut feeling that she would find him some day. Now that she had found him, to be separated from him again would surely kill her, she thought. What gods sit in judgment over people’s lives, decreeing patterns and offering little choices? She shivered again.

 

Tega felt her tension, which was exactly what he was feeling - tension.

 

“Let’s walk,” he said, taking her hand, and leading her away from the bonfire. It was beginning to drizzle and getting very cold. He pulled her to him and she snuggled into him, wanting to bury her whole being in his body.

 

They walked, their movement encumbered by their entanglement. They could hear the fading songs of the Kegites but already they were in another world, like they were never part of the rest of Benue State corpers now celebrating the end of orientation.

 

Tega stopped suddenly. He turned and took Amanda’s face in his hands. He could not see her eyes but he knew they were flooded with tears. He felt them scalding his palms.

 

“I love you, Mandy,” he whispered, afraid that his meaning would be lost if he spoke louder, “and no distance thrown between us can change that.”

 

A deep silence filled the space broken only by her sobs, slow, deep and hurting. He held her, and squeezed, steeling himself. A man does not cry, he remembered the line from an Indian film. But the tears were in his eyes, close to spilling.

 

Through the mist and over her shoulder, he could see the bonfire in the distance, burning the night away, bringing in tomorrow.

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