“Oh! I’m sorry, Ona,” he said, chuckling. “I’ve missed you so much. Seeing you again is like a dream come true.”
“I can’t believe it, either. Seeing you has erased the pain of these past months.”
Together we entered his room, and he wasted no time filling me in on the details.
“Do you recall when I used to play the role of prince? When we were kids?”
“Of course, I do. I remember very well.”
I remembered it like it was yesterday. That was when I was still allowed to play freely with Okem. He often played the role of a prince, a persona that took different forms over the years. Once, he pretended to be ‘the frog prince’ who had been charmed by a wicked witch. To break the spell, he stuck his lips out to kiss me, his ‘beautiful princess’ and I reminded him that if he didn’t put his mouth right back where they belonged, his lips would remain protruding like that of a frog and he may indeed turn into one. He had shivered from fear over my comments and never played that game again. Another time, he was the knight, and I was his damsel in distress who he had come to rescue from the wicked witch who had the beautiful damsel holed up in a tower, banning her from seeing the man she loved.
“Those were the good old days,” Okem said, jerking me out of my reverie. “Have a seat.”
I sat on the desk while he sat on the bed, facing me.
“The father Albert has known his whole life, the late King is not his real father.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “That doesn’t make sense. Who then is his father?”
“His real father is Ekema’s lover, Ozumba.”
“Which Ekema? The King’s sister? And Ozumba? How?”
“Yes, the Ideme’s sister.”
“But how?”
He sighed. “For years, Ekema nursed the ambition to control Ide and everything in it, including taking the throne. She saw her chance after her child was born two days apart from the King’s real son. Her ambition drove her to perform a dastardly crime. At birth, the Crown Prince and her son Albert bore such a striking resemblance, like all children do, especially those born within the same family. When he was taken from his crib and replaced by her newborn son, no one, not even my beloved mother knew of the crime that was committed.”
“Your mother!” I was on the edge of the desk, gasping for breath as I tried to make sense of the stunning revelations. Nothing Okem told me about Ekema and Ozumba, and now, his mother, made any sense. “What has your mother got to do with this?” I asked.
“My mother...the Queen.”
“Wait! The Queen is your mother?”
He nodded once.
Stunned beyond belief, I placed a hand over my gaping mouth and the other on my chest to control the heaving. I had been struggling to absorb the fact that Albert was Ekema and Ozumba’s son before Okem made the most shocking revelation of all.
“The Queen is my mother, and Ozumba, the father I have known my whole life, is not my real father. The late King is my father. It turns out that my role-play was not in vain after all. I am the Crown Prince.”
* * *
I took a moment to take in everything Okem had just revealed to me and shivered as his comments hit me like a déjà vu. It reminded me of the out-of-body experience I had with the rain on my drive to Albert’s house. It seems all these years, his role-play as prince, much like my wish for rain, was a type of prophecy.
“Go on,” I pleaded after I realized he was waiting for his revelations to sink in.
“To ensure I was nowhere near the palace after she got her son settled into my rightful position, Albert’s real mother, Ekema, placed me with her boyfriend Ozumba and paid him handsomely to assume the role of my father.”
“I can’t believe this. Just to be sure, is this the same Ozumba I know?” I asked, feeling as though I would faint.
“Yes.”
“How did Ekema explain the disappearance of her child?” I stood up from the desk to pace the room in every direction while Okem remained sitting on the bed with both hands on his knees.
“She claimed he died soon after birth. Everyone thought she’d lost her child.”
I snapped my fingers in derision.
“Unbelievable. Thank God she didn’t murder you.”
“I heard she tried many times without success. Anyway, Ozumba took care of me for several years before he finally sent me off as a house-boy at Ekema’s request. As I grew older, I began to look more and more like my birth father than my cousin Albert did. Ekema became increasingly scared that I would one day trace my lineage.”
“I see that now,” I whispered. “The resemblance is striking. You’re the Crown Prince,” I said, stopping for a few seconds to stare at him.
Okem remained calm and nodded slowly before continuing. “Some weeks before I was given away, Ozumba overheard me saying that I was a prince while I played with other children. He beat the living daylights out of me. It was soon after that declaration that they plotted to send me away; to make me disappear forever. An obscure servant would never see the light of day, so when your grandfather sent an emissary to Ide to look for a house-help, they found the perfect opportunity to get rid of me. Ozumba hatched a plan which Ekema readily agreed to. The emissary chose me after he was introduced to Ozumba, who at the time lived under the guise of a doting single father that needed all the help he could get in raising a child. Within a couple of days, I traveled to Ntebe with Ozumba and his cousin who posed as my mother.”
“That was his cousin? The woman that came with you and Ozumba the day you moved in with us? I
