BOLU'S WEDDING

A woman's wedding day is her happiest day, right?

Well, it's not like that for Bolu. Her wedding day was her saddest day.

Why?

Because she spent it in police custody.

Before now, if you asked Bolu what her wedding was going to look like, she'd clap three times and say, "Grand, thank you!" She was getting married to Demola, the man of her dreams.

Demola was a shark in the sea, but instead of salt water, Demola was swimming in money. His father was a big man in Abacha's government. His mother travelled to London and Paris like you were stepping into your bedroom after a long day at work. Demola himself was a young politician. Nursing a balding head, and an emerging potbelly, wearing Gucci shoes whose brightness challenged the sun. He owned two cars, both Bugatti and also duplexes sprinkled about Lagos Island.

Bolu was a fashion designer. She worked with ArtEast, a brand whose manager was as ruthless as a scorpion sting. Sometimes, they went for shows- fashion shows. Some of their models cartwheeled in their dresses while trying to sell.

The night Bolu met Demola, she was cartwheeling in an A-frame Ankara, looking ridiculously tall and thin in heels. He cornered her after the show and offered to buy her a drink. She drank his perfume more than the wine he bought her. He couldn't keep his eyes away from her, and she felt like running off to urinate. But she couldn't move. She was totally smitten by him. Three hangouts later, they were officially dating.

Designer wears. Glittering shoes. Sweet perfumes. Crisp naira notes. Big, spacious houses with ceiling-to-floor mirrors. Flights in and out of Nigeria. These were the highlights of their relationship. But there was love too—a lot of love. But remember, when there's money, love materialises in extraordinary ways.

After two years, they decided to marry. But Demola's father died in the scheduled month of their wedding, and it was thus postponed. The next year, Damola got in a motor accident, which almost claimed his life. While their wedding invitations lavished away in Bolu's box, Demola writhed on the hospital bed, fighting for his life.

A lot of rumours were flying about. Maybe Bolu was a witch. Maybe Demola's family's wealth was diabolical. Maybe this, maybe that. Bolu's mother even advised her to leave him. But Bolu said, "When everything was going well, did I leave him?"

They fixed a new date when he finally healed. April 2020. While they planned, COVID-19 was somewhere in Wuhan laughing hard, raising his fist and saying, "We shall see!"

After April, COVID-19 was no longer new. Nose masks sold like pure water. Everyone made them. There were Ankara masks, leather masks, even masks made of straw. Hand sanitisers rose in price, some of them locally made: droplets of methylated spirit and soda, smelling like stale sweat and Mecca perfumes, sold in old bottles with dreg-thick bases. Schools had shut down. Only twenty people or less should attend church and mosque services. Social distancing must be maintained to curtail the disease.

This was the time Bolu and Demola planned to tie the knot. Her mother asked for a postponement. Many family members in Demola's family held the same view. But the lovebirds were adamant; they'd postponed it enough. They'd have a simple wedding. Just family and friends, nobody else. All the grandeur Bolu had fantasised about washed down the drain. But she didn't mind as long as she would be Demola's wife.

On that day, before the speckled rooster cleared its throat, Bolu's father's house was already busy. Smoke twirling in the half-gloom like boneless dancers. Utensils were clattering against the silence—the balmy smell of boiled rice mixed with the spice of stew, the crispness of fried meat. The day was still young, and cold stung like harmattan wind. Gatherings like this were now done with care, or else the police fed on you.

Before seven, everything was in place. Bolu was bound up in her wedding gown, a fleecy white with a pyramidal train and tight bodice. Demola wore a red suit with a paisley-patterned bowtie. The family drove to church in convoy, an unbroken phalanx of cars, tinted windows, twinkle-white wheels.

More than twenty people were in the church before the couple arrived. The choir itself was made up of thirty singers. Bolu was sandwiched between her parents, but occasionally, she winked at Demola, and he smiled back. His dimples deepened. Bolu pressed her legs together. She couldn't wait to be alone with Demola, alone as his wife, on their honeymoon, high up in a penthouse in Central London.

But then, they heard a thud outside, a muffled gunshot. All the cheers fizzled out. The assistant pastor ran to the door but was shoved back in, accompanied by three armed policemen.

The policemen didn't pick everyone - Only the pastor, a couple of protesting churchmen, Bolu and Demola. They read to the dismayed crowd the COVID-19 guidelines and sent them all away. Then, pushing their captives into the vans, the vans zoomed off, leaving furious trails of dust in their wake.

Bolu's throat was parched. She ached to taste water, a drop, just a drop. She tried to say something, but the policeman raised his hand. She wanted to ask if he knew who she was, who she was marrying, whether he wanted money or something.

But she couldn't say anything. It was final: she was going to jail. The government made it clear. Anyone caught violating the COVID-19 guidelines must be arrested and detained for at least a week. She looked through the window. The van carrying Demola and the pastor was far behind. All she could see was the rush of trees, zooming past like crumbling dreams. She raked through her hair, yanked off her veil and sent it out floating in the wind. Not knowing what else to do, she laid her head against the window and started to cry.

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