Adolf found me when I was doing my national service. He was working at the bank, and I had gone there to do a transaction when he noticed me. He took my number and said anytime I was coming to the bank, I should give him a call so he would be ready for me. I didn’t go to the bank for weeks, but he called and asked why I hadn’t been coming. I told him, “I don’t deal with the bank like that ooo. I don’t have money to make the bank my friend.”

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He laughed and called me interesting. Days later, I heard him calling me Madam Interesting on the phone. We became friends, but along the line he started talking about love. I asked for time to think about it while I actually did nothing. He never gave up on me. The next time I went to the bank, he bought me lunch. He made me wait in his office until he closed and then brought me home.

He wanted to come into my room, but I said no. He asked why, and I told him, “If you see my room today, you won’t see me again tomorrow. There’s nothing there.”

I’d gone to the town for my service and entered with nothing except a student mattress. He insisted, and I let him in. He said, “Beautiful room. It looks like you’re a monk. No earthly treasure.”

Days later, even when I hadn’t said yes to his proposal, he came with a big mattress and a pillow. Another day, he came with a carpet and curtains and helped me hang them. Later came a microwave. When I accepted his proposal, he came with a bed frame and later a small table fridge. My room slowly took shape because of his benevolence.

I remember calling my mom and telling her I’d met a man who was changing my room for me. She asked, “Is he going to marry you?” I answered, “Why are you running with this? He’s just a good man.” One day, when Adolf came around, I put him on the phone, and he spoke to my mom. He laughed throughout the conversation and later named my mom “Mama Interesting.”

When I got to know his place and started spending weekends there, I knew I’d found a man to take me through the ages. I surrendered my heart, focused on his table, and said to myself, “This is where my love life ends.”

It wasn’t only the material things he gave me. He was very busy, but he made time for me. He made me feel seen. He chose me above everything and made plans for me. When I completed service and was leaving town, I cried in his arms. I didn’t want to go. He even tried to get me a job, but it didn’t work. When I left the town, he went with me to see my mom for the first time, and she prayed for us to blossom in love.

I visited once in a while, sometimes spending a week before leaving him. When I got a job, I visited every weekend. Right after work on Friday, I sat in a car and went to him. Work schedules got tighter on my end and also on his, so the visits slowed down. I remember that for a whole month, I didn’t visit even once.

I took five days’ leave from work to spend time with him but didn’t tell him. When I got to his place, he was living with a woman, just like we used to when I was there. You could see she had made his place her own, cooking and cleaning. I was already inside the room before he saw me. I didn’t scream. I didn’t put up a show. I simply froze for a while and walked out.

He followed me, apologizing and blaming it on loneliness. “I can make her leave right now. You don’t have to go.” I was so overwhelmed I didn’t know what to say. I told him, “I’m going. Call me when she leaves.” I boarded a car back home with the pieces of my heart in my hands. The hurt ran too deep. I got home and broke down on my mom’s lap. She was equally shocked. “You mean you saw another woman in Adolf’s room?”

I couldn’t love him the same way again, so I told him it was over. He went crazy. “It’s over after everything I’ve done for you? You can’t tell me that.”

He came for the TV he had bought me years ago when I wasn’t home. He picked other items from my room, even ones he didn’t buy. He was trapping me to go to his place for them so he could have his way with me, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Because I didn’t go, he took his time and came for the tiny things his money bought me. Even my mom’s words couldn’t stop him. One day I told him, “Pick everything so you don’t come back again.”

After that day, I didn’t see him again. His attitude made the healing process hard, but I healed and found Richard a year after the breakup. I even told Richard about Adolf and how he came for the things he bought me, thinking the storm was over.

I had dated Richard for a year, and we were a few days away from getting married when one day I was in town buying foodstuff and Richard called me. He was in my room waiting for my return. He said, “There’s a guy here. He said he forgot the bed, so he’s coming for it.” Immediately I heard his voice in the background, I knew it was Adolf. He said, “I can’t buy a bed for another man to sleep on. I’m coming for it.”

I heard Richard laughing while I was talking to Adolf. I screamed at him to leave my room. I told Richard to call the police. He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle him.” I rushed home and found my room without a bed. It was Richard himself who dismantled the bed and carried part of it into the car that came. They later shook hands, and Adolf thanked him.

To date, Richard uses that event to mock me. When we got married and I was packing into his place, he would look at every item and ask, “Are you sure you bought this yourself?” If I said yes, he would say, “Please wait, let me call Adolf to verify,” and he did.

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“Hello, Adolf. There’s an item here that needs verification. It’s red and stands two feet tall. Did you buy it?” Then they would both burst out laughing. I would be there burning with anger while they laughed on the phone. Our marriage is four years old, but the story of Adolf never gets old. I think our children will inherit it and pass it on too.

—Audrey

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