Our prince blinked, and though there were many things he wanted to say to her, all that came out of his mouth was, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you wanted Fan Ice? I would have bought it for you.’
Our princess raised a brow. ‘I didn’t know you cared if I wanted a Fan Ice or not.’
‘Of course I care. I care about everything you want.’
The princess looked at him for what felt like months. The prince felt sure he felt the season shift from Rainy to Harmattan. Then she looked out, to the deep, green hills and rocks, as if seeking their aged wisdom. Eventually, she turned back to him. He freed the air he hadn’t realised had been held captive in his mouth.
She shrugged. ‘The Fan Ice even gave me a stomach-ache. I think he bought one that was expiring to save money.’
At seventeen and eighteen, the prince and princess both set out for university. She boards a plane for the first time in her life and heads to England, while he loads his rickety car and drives the three hours it takes to get to the town of Ifé. There is a tacit agreement that they will stay in touch, but there is also a concealed fear from both that the other will grow numb and forget.
At university they both explore new universes. The prince melds into his new world easily, for though it is a new world, it is really the old world, for Ifé is the root of his people, the heart of Yorubaland. At the University of Ifé, he thrives like a trueborn on his own turf. Charismatic, smart, likeable, with a strong sense of right and wrong, it’s as if all he is destined to be is honed here; he belongs.
The princess, on the other hand, is hurtled into a foreign land with cold air and cold faces. She works gruelling, thankless jobs to put herself through university for people who look through her or stare at her too much. Though love was poured into her, by the time it was her turn to attend university, her family’s money had run out. She makes it her duty to replenish it. In the first two months, she stays with friends of friends, family of family, or in tiny hostel rooms with thin blankets and thinner smiles and tells herself it will be worth it. That, in this sunless land, she could still shine. This does not stop the chill of lonely from setting in or the dark from descending. Then, on one particularly bleak morning, she receives a letter. She recognises the handwriting, elegant yet sturdy, deliberate yet breezy, and slightly rotund, like a hearty chuckle. From the stamp she notes that it must have been sent around two months ago, with the Nigerian postal system plus the international fees delaying receipt. She sits on her narrow, slim bed and rips the envelope open.
I bet you don’t need Fan Ice where you are, she reads.
In the dull, she glows.
The letters build. Within six months, she has stacks. They are more than enough to insulate her from the lonely. They are thick and sturdy enough to form the foundation of a home, they form a kind of insulation between the walls so that she is warmed with love, and somehow, somehow, both of them sourced the only paper in the world that doesn’t turn to dust, the only ink that doesn’t fade, so their words remain today as fresh as the moment they wrote them. What they say to each other on these ancient parchments is between them, a sacred scripture, and, in reverence, we shall keep it unarticulated. However, its sentiments live and flow through them, in the world they build, coating the walls of their city, on a hill, so that, from afar, visitors see a great palace with beautiful, decadent, flowered vines twining through the gates, spilling over its fences.
Of course, by now they realise that they are in love. It has been an immutable fact for a while, but the recognition of it is encouraged by the miles between them. Distance draws them closer. It wasn’t so much that they tripped and fell in love, it was more that it was always their reality and in their atmosphere. A fish does not recognise its need for water until it is gasping for it.
Our prince graduates and moves to England. In their time apart they have honed themselves and discovered more of their individual power. Their self-awareness only makes their love richer, and they feel that, together, they have enough to build a kingdom together. And so they do. Their marriage is officiated back in Yaba, in the area with the two clocks, two lifetimes marrying together. Our prince and princess become king and queen.
They plant their love into their kingdom, and it grows, abundantly, into a thick forest with trees so plush and green they could be woven together to form a blanket for the angels. The fruit it bears is delicious, full and sweet, and anyone who bites into it is blessed, because God loves them. They have so much love that the fruits can feed surrounding towns and villages. The king and queen invite people in, feed them, and the people often find themselves fortified, replenished and indulged with enough good health and good spirits to go and start their own kingdoms. They start a family, three girls who grow up underneath the warm light of their affections, who understand laughter as a language and friendship as an active ingredient in true romance. The natural arguments that occur can be fierce, but the foundations of the house are built on years-old mystic paper, and so they are strong and the walls do not crumble, though they may tremble.