“A Letter to Pa Ilese”
by Dipo Kalejaiye
(The following text is an excerpt from a longer non-fiction work)
The next incident which would remain
memorable to me occurred one day during our evening prep. I was reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte when you
came up to me and asked me a question. The question took me by surprise. “Do
you have a girl friend?” you asked in a hesitant manner. I looked at you, turned the wick of my
hurricane lantern up so that I could have enough light to see the words on page
thirty two of the book. As usual there was no electricity, and the eerie
feeling that the pitch dark surrounding of the school produced was both a thing
of wonder and of awe. The frogs were croaking endlessly, and if one looked out
of the window and far into the thick forest, one could see the flickering
hurricane lanterns and locally made lamps of the villagers of Apata Ganga. They had no
electricity too.
“Yes I have a girl friend” I replied.
“Is she in this school?” you asked.
“No, she goes to
“
“Yes” I replied.
“But so many girls like you here, why do you have to go all the way to
“
“And your girlfriend at
“She likes me for who I am?”
“So who are you?” you asked
“I am someone that likes reading, literature, drama, and the music of Fela and his Koola Lobitos”.
“I see … how did you get the girl?” you
inquired.
“Well she lives not too far from my house. She lives in an area known
as Imalefalafia.
I met her by chance. I was rehearsing for a play at the Ibadan
Youth Center on Ososami Road, our director was Mr. Tunji Oyelana, who took a break
from his hectic acting schedule with Mr. Wole Soyinka’s Orisun Theater to come
and rehearse my theater group” I concluded trying to get back to Jane Eyre.
“Your theater group?” you asked looking at me as if there was something
wrong with me.
“Yes I have a small amateur theater group. I am their leader, and
during holidays, we rehearse a small play at the
“Your girlfriend is an actress?”
“No, no, she came to see the rehearsal of the play I was in. The play
was titled The Inspector; it was an
adaptation of an original play, The
Inspector-General, a Russian satire by Nikolai Gogol. She was visiting her friend who lived
in the next house to the youth center.
“So this is the town of
When I finished speaking you went back to the topic of girlfriends.
“What is her name?” you asked,
sitting down next to me.
“Her name is Soji” I replied.
“Soji … good
name. How did you get her to
like you?” you pressed further.
“I didn’t have to get her to like me … I just tried to be myself”
“Well I don’t know how to be myself!”
“What?”
“I am telling you I don’t know how to be myself. I don’t know how to
talk to girls. You are a man of literature, and words you know what to say. You
memorize all the time. I have heard you recite Duke Orsinio’s
speech from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
totally from memory. You even joined the prestigious Literary and Debating
Society of our school, and I know how that the beautiful literature teacher
Mrs. Victoria Adebekun was always praising you. I
hear they want to put you in the school play we are about to do for parents’
day, I mean that play- The Importance of
Being Earnest, the one everyone is struggling to be in … Look I really need
you to teach me how to …”
Then you stopped and did not say anything more.
“How to do what?” I inquired.
“How to talk to girls?”
“What? You can’t mean that”
“I mean it. I want to know how to talk to girls. Look at Show Boy; he
gets whichever one of them he wants. He brags about being a
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Talk to a girl for me!”
“Talk to a girl for you?”
“Yes. Her name is Patricia Cole”
“Patricia Cole?”
“Yes” you replied. It was at that time it dawned on me that you were
interested in a girl from Sierra Leone who came to Nigeria because her father
worked for the Nigerian Railway Corporation in Ibadan,
and her mother was a nurse at the University College Hospital Ibadan.
“Patricia Cole? Why she is a stunning beauty” I replied marveling at
the fact that you seemed to have a very good taste in girls.
“Yes I really like Patricia Cole”. You continued to pressurize me to
talk to Patricia Cole for you, and I finally agreed to do that, but it was not
until you showed me the love letter you had written to Patricia which she
returned to you instantly! This was part of the love letter:
“Date: Lovely Dated
Address: GARDEN OF EDEN (where love was first created).
My dear Patricia,
I hope this letter meets you in good health, if so splendid!
I am writing to let you know that ever since I saw your face I have
been struck by your irresistible beauty. You are a paragon of undeniable
beauty. You are the sun shining in my eyes, waking me up in the morning with
golden yellow lucent rays. You are like the stars winking at me from above. You
are the moon radiant, and beckoning to me from the sky to come and play with
you. Your love radiates in my mind and shines like diamond. It is like a new
toy in the hands of a child. It is bright like the moon lighting up the village
at night. It is refreshing like water drawn from the river at dawn. I think of
you every minute, and I have been unable to eat, read, sleep, or think, because
of you. The other day, when I saw you walking past one of the classrooms, I was
so enraptured with you, that I even forgot my own name! I am always green with envy whenever I see
another boy talking to you. I always feel as if they are toying with what is
mine. My skin would rise out of my body. My eyes will be flushed red with
anger. I cannot bear to see you talking to another boy. Anytime I see you, your
beauty makes my legs wobbly like that of a drunkard. When I sleep at night it
is you that I see in my dreams, beckoning to me to come to you. It is you I see
whispering words of love into my ears. It is you I see caressing the back of my
neck, and holding my hands. It is you I see saying to me: Come my love, let us
be together. It is you I see wading with me in the river of life. It is you I
see asking me to be yours. It is you I see always, telling me that you’ll be in
my dream always. Oh! My Paragon of beauty, you are the apple of my eye, the
meat in my stew, the butter in my bread, and the crown on my head. Oh! How I
long to hold your hands, and give you a kiss on your succulent lips. Your
voluptuous body invites me, and I long to be next to it. Anytime I see your
figure eight, and your bosoms heaving, I am tantalized. I feel a pang like a hunger pang and I want to
be with you. Your lips, red with lipstick remind me of the palm oil with which
I eat the new yam in the month of August. Won’t you be my girlfriend? I eagerly
await your positive reply to my humble request, my dear paragon of beauty …!”
Yours sincerely,
Pa Ilese (Your
lover on earth and in heaven!)”
You gave me the parchment which had been crumpled in your pocket, and
which water, oil, and dirt, had made other parts of the rather long letter
unreadable.
“You wrote her this letter?” I asked.
“Yes, but she returned it to me telling me never to write her such a
stupid letter again!”
At this point I told you that you were “lucky” indeed. If Patricia had
given the letter to our Principal, it would have been big trouble for you. I
reminded you of a case like that the previous year, when one boy Paul, wrote
such a letter, which we commonly referred to as a “love letter” at that time,
to another girl- Ajoke. Ajoke ran to the
Principal, and gave the letter to the Principal. Paul was flogged mercilessly
by our principal, and asked to go and bring his parents to the Principal’s
office. As you will recollect, that was the thing we dreaded more than corporal
punishment. No one liked to have to go and bring his or her parents, for a
meeting with the principal. It was the ultimate disgrace. When the Principal
was finished flogging you, your parents were likely to resume where he left
off! That was usually a double disgrace. Then I told you that you must have
been quite lucky that Patricia did not give the letter to the Principal.