THE STORY: in love and in war

   1

 

      Present day.  Lagos

    Tunde Peters sat at his office desk flipping through the files one by one, rummaging through the files on his table for the appropriate file one. He had just got out of a conference meeting called by his father, the founder of the company- Peters & Peters Plc. He sighed at last, drew out a file from the collapsed stack in front of him and picked up the intercom on his desk.  

 

  “Susan, I need you here right away to clean up this mess and bring a cup of coffee with you”. He hung up and moved with long strides to the sofa at the other end of his office. His secretary walked in right then- smart as hell and attractive too- towards him to hand him his coffee then to his desk where she briskly got the whole place cleared up and went out the way she came. He picked up the file labeled Mobola Peters and groaned. He just got promoted within the office and he meant to put his position to good use to finding out what exactly happened to his sister.

    

 Tunde was a replica of his father though and through- Tall, dark, big nose, broad shoulders and long flat feet. He breathed and spoke wealth. He and his sister Mobola were literally born with golden spoons in their mouths. He flipped open the file and glanced at the pictures in it. For so long, he had tried to ignore her pictures but Mobola was not someone to be ignored. She was his dear little sister with whom he grew. Now, he was to go out there to look for her. The pictures ranged from when she was a toothless toddler to her in school laughing with her head thrown back. That was the Mobola he knew. According to their father, there were certain new links to where the kidnappers could have kept her all these years, seven years to be precise- enough for any parent to have lost hope- but not the Peters. They never did. He thought, smiling to himself.   

 

The worst of the pain had ebbed, but in its stead was something just as strong. He missed her laughter and wished he didn’t have to face most of the adolescent years alone with his parents. It was a boring life but he scaled through it all to earn him a seat at Peters & Peters after his graduation. He had few chosen friends- carefully chosen by his parents- and lots of others his parents know absolutely nothing about. He relived one of the saddest days of his life, he was only nineteen years old and he was at the University. One of those weekends he chose to spend at home with his family. He particularly came home because he wanted to share some news about school and his new girlfriend with her- something they couldn’t afford to carry on the wind to either of their parent’s ears.         

 

*          *       *

 

  As he walked through the giant gates of his father’s mansion, Tunde Peters knew immediately that there was something wrong. Something amiss. It was some sort of premonition or was it? He tried to feel the initial excitement he had when he thought of going home but it just didn’t stay in his grasp. It kept slipping through his fingers. He ran, took the main stairs, two at a time and the last three, he took all with one swift jump through the main entrance of the house. The house felt unusually empty. No one knew he was coming home or either of his parents would have sent a car to pick him up from school. He had decided last minute to surprise them.  

   “Mobola! Mobola!!” he screamed running straight to the kitchen. There he saw their maid of 4yrs, Jane, who was quick to explain everyone’s whereabouts in broken English and her sing-song accent while collecting his luggage from the kitchen floor. “Oga and Madam have went out since morning. They will soon back”. She sang, smiling, then, she turned to leave. “What about my sister? Did she go with them too?” he said between bites of the banana he was munching. “Uncle Tunde, I don’t know say them no tell you but Mobola, she have not come home since one month. They have not find her.” She said trying to gesticulate beneath the bulk of luggage she was carrying atop her head. Tunde froze.  

“What? And no one dimmed it fit to let me in on this!” he shouted, at no one in particular. He threw the uneaten remains of the banana he was holding into the trash can then, marched in fury up the stairs and into his room.              

    It was almost evening when his parents arrived. And with no Mobola. They both looked exhausted and shock-struck from the fear of losing a child. He joined them in the sitting room downstairs and demanded straight-on for an explanation on what was going on. “Don’t even think of pretending that everything’s fine. I know something is wrong. What happened to Mobola?” he raved. His mother sighed. His father got up and paced.      “Will someone just tell me what’s going on here?” he asked, now so close to tears. It was hard having to face up to the fact that it this nightmare was no dream at all. “So, it’s true then. She’s not coming back, is she? Talk to me!” he shouted, facing his mother.    

 “We are still looking for her. She seems to have simply vanished into thin air. She took permission to go to Lope’s house to play but she never got there. She didn’t come back home either. The authorities have been notified already and we fear she might have been kidnapped. So, the police said we should wait a few days if the kidnappers will ask for ransom but so far, we’ve heard nothing of the sort. Just silence. From the police, the private investigators your father hired and even in the media houses.” She finished, dabbing furiously at her eyes to prevent the tears from spilling.    

 “Tunde, we fear for the worst already. Despite the hope in our hearts that we find her and soon, the realization that it might not happen will drive us to face our own lives and handle it with more meaning and strength towards fulfilling our purposes on this planet. I hope that stays in the foremost of your mind, son. I sincerely hope you learn and make yourself and us proud.” He finished his speech at the foot of the stairs, glass in hand; he took one last look at his family before retiring into his room. They all followed suit after him. Each one, to his or her own room.     

 

 

*           *      *

 

 

  Now, as he sat on the couch reliving those days, he flipped the file’s pages through to the last one. The instructions and new information gathered were there. He was supposed to interview a friend of hers that none of them had known, supposedly, her best friend from school. He had no idea what this was supposed to do to their parents but he had already given up on finding her again. Ever. He checked last available address and noted it. He was going all the way to the North to gather memoirs of his sister for his parents. He hoped it’d do something for them both because they seemed to really want it. He wondered what it was about the kidnappers. He flipped through again to confirm that there was nothing about it at all in the file in his hands. He promptly made the call to his assistant and gave the necessary instructions for their journey on the morrow.