... After the visitor left, her father handed over the keys and the envelope to her, she too was at a lost as to who could have gone this far, however, she had decided to put her past behind and is willing to accept her fate as long as the person is her Mr. right. So unlike before she quietly began to open the envelope, her heart beating rapidly, her father objected to that and advised her to take her time and do it at her convenience since the envelope is hers, her mother said same thing but in response she forced a smile on her face and said it's not a big deal. She went through the short letter inside the envelope in a jiffy and sighed. "It was Izuu," She said, he wants to help me in my business for old time sake. Then she stood up and left before her parents could notice the tears forming in her eyes.
Uju sold the shops and left the village to start a new life in Mgbidi, another distant town,
she specialized in selling baby clothes and accessories, she became very successful and in no distant time started going to Onitsha to buy these baby clothes which she resold at Mgbidi to make profits. She also brought her younger sister to Mgbidi to join her in the trade. Everything was moving fine for her, her brothers and other sisters also visits her on holidays sometimes. She was now too busy to think about Izuu or Nneka but in her heart she was also thankful to Izuu for the shops he bought, it was the proceeds from the shops after she resold them that she used to travel to Mgbidi to start a new life away from the village.The year that followed was so turbulent, people in cities ran back to their villages and later went back to their bases when it was said that calm has been restored. A lot of families lost their loved ones and their properties in Northern Nigeria and other places. Izuu, Nneka and their two sons had briefly moved back to Onitsha before returning back to Lagos. There was palpable tension all over the place, one Sunday, a Catholic Priest while delivering his sermon in the Church, had asked parents to teach their kids the names of their relatives and their villages so they won't be lost in the event of a war. The Church had prayed against such a possibility and hoped that Ojukwu and Gowon will settle their differences. As traders, Uju doesn't know much about politics and what was happening, she only slept in Nigeria one morning and waked up in Biafra. People were celebrating all over the place, the rich was glued to their black and white television or small radios. For Uju, it was one week one new story, going to Onitsha was becoming difficult with all new uniformed security personnel's carrying the new Biafran flag, a lot of activities were happening to which Uju really did not understand until one day she waked up again to hear that war has broken out between Nigeria and Biafra, lot's of people where going back to their villages and many more where coming to Mgbidi even those who were from Mgbidi but had no house, some of them were big men in the townships across Nigeria where they lived before the war started. Uju was scared, she found herself thinking about Izuu, Nneka and their family who travelled back to Lagos before the war broke out.
As things began to get tougher, and the village filled with stories of war, Uju became very scared, she packed up one morning and ran back to her interior village. The village was more peaceful than Mgbidi although a lot of their villagers who were living in the townships had also returned home. The war dragged on without anybody hearing anything about Izuu and family, their parents were in anguish, Izuu had long completed his duplex and furnished it, the finest in the village but his whereabouts and that of his family remained unknown. There were also many families like theirs, everyone prayed for their safety. The year that followed saw increase in refugees trooping into the village, Uju was still doing her trading around the small communities, things increasingly became more difficult, baby clothing's became very scarce and Uju moved into the selling of food items but doing that too became risky. One day some Biafran Soldiers marched into the community and a lot of enthusiastic youths joined their ranks including her two brothers. The corps of one of his brothers was brought home three months later with the whereabouts of the other one unknown. Soon, the remaining youths of the village went into hiding as anyone seen and who is adjudged fit enough is drafted into the Army even against his will. They lived in the forest and their little sisters took food to them.
It was in early 1969 that Izuchukwu came back to the village as a wounded Biafran soldier, who deserted his command and escaped from where he was being treated and made his way to the village, the whereabouts of his family unknown to him, he was in his shop when the riot broke out on the streets, the market where mostly Igbo traders where plying their trade was set ablaze, many where killed, he escaped and ran to the house but on getting home he saw that where he was living with his family has been reduced to ashes with smoke still rising from the hip, their was no way to know if his family was killed in the inferno or if thy have escaped. He had to stay around for weeks searching for information on the whereabouts of his family but Lagos streets was becoming too dangerous for an ordinary homeless easterner so he escaped to Asaba. He was still using his business contacts to see if he can locate his family in Lagos when the Asaba massacre occurred. He was so angry against the federal troops that he joined the Biafran Army and had been fighting ever since.
Izuu was so malnourished and lean, one of his legs has been shattered by enemy soldiers, his clothes which were mere rags hung on his body. He concluded that he will die like other wounded soldiers because there was barely enough medical supplies to take care of them, so he in company of a few others helped each other escape, he came home to be treated traditionally by Okorie, a well known bone setter in the village. Izu's mother had died of hypertension a year before Izuu turned up. The war however had not gotten to the village, the only impact felt in the village is the unprecedented number of refugees from distant communities as well as the periodic visits of Biafran Soldiers to look for food and young men to be forcefully recruited into their ranks. Uju did the best she can to be consoling Izuu alongside Izuu's sisters. The traditional medicine man did his magic and Izuu was now strong enough to move around supporting himself with walking sticks. The relationship between him and Uju soon became strong again and they eventually got married towards the end of the year. Nneka's family were very furious but even if Nneka was still with Izuu in the village, he was still entitled to marry a second wife if wants to.
By the time the war ended the next year, Uju was already pregnant and was living with him in his well furnished duplex. After his full recovery, Izuu went back to Lagos to discover that his Yoruba landlord had rescued his wife and children and in the heat of the riot had taken them to his own village in Sagamu, very close to Lagos were she farmed to sustain herself and her Children for the thirty months the war lasted, making do also with her husband's business money which she was able to take from the save before they escaped that afternoon. Izuu lost everything he had in the bank and the goods in his shop, he simply thanked his landlord and brought his family home to his village, where he lived with them and Uju his second wife who also gave birth to a baby boy whom he named Ogueri.
THE END