Willys meant cops. So when the jeep stopped outside her house the new bride peered outside the window a lot anxious. The big burly with twirled moustache and rolled up shirt sleeves sat with one leg out on the footboard so he could jump out even before the vehicle came to a complete stop and take off after the criminal – at least that was the image enforced in her mind by the movies. A muscled man with neatly parted hair and curled up sleeves sat at the driver’s seat,
As children, our parents kept me and my sisters away from adultery and blaspheme by shifting to English. So we might all be sitting around and talking about the annual day celebrations of our village school in Koko, rural Nigeria, in Malayalam. Suddenly, they would go ‘Mrs Gloria caught Miss Pereira and Mr Okay in a tight embrace in an empty staffroom,’ in English. Or, how Umma, Fr John’s sister ‘was rumoured to have slept with half the congregation.’ We pretended these little loaded nuggets went over our heads so
