Ezinne

Most times, I find it difficult to smile for the camera. Have always found it difficult to. Have always seen it as something abnormal. Like dancing. I  guess it’s because, I am not the normal guy down the hood.

I became aware of it, from childhood when mother would always rebuke me during photo shoots. Or when something good happened and I was supposed to smile. And, I didn’t.

"Put up a smile, you moody child! Why don't you ever smile?"

Then, she’d proceed to use every trick in her armory to try to get me to smile. All to no avail.

I didn't understand her then. I thought she was just being overtly overbearing. That’s how my little mind interpreted a mother’s intense love  for her child  who  looked  exactly  like  her, on whose face, she wanted to see beautiful smiles.

And she’s a beautiful woman, my mother. Watching  her  smile  would  most  certainly,  make anyone  smile. But, not me-the young me.

And so, she rebuked and rebuked.

“Even your mother’s smile cannot get you to smile,” she’d sigh in disgust.

It was same thing during my nursery school graduation. The same during secondary school graduation. It was same during my matriculation. And on that one she almost flared up.

“The least you can do for your extended family is to smile in a picture you’re taking with them. You’re going to be their first doctor.”

Then, she  put on that  frown, that long  face, that mine looks exactly  like on a normal day.

Yet, I did not smile.

There was still non for my convocation. I didn't even wear the gown, didn’t  take  pictures and, didn't inform them about the damn ceremony.

Not that it mattered, anyway. Convocation had since become nothing to celebrate in this country. The country has become a very difficult  place.

***

So, when I woke up  this morning, having dreamt all night long  about the hefty  fee I’ve had  to pay  for an MSc  program I’ve just enrolled for,  I was certain I wasn’t gonna smile all day.

I was sure that my  face was  consistently  going  to look  like the  one  my  friend  Ugochi Iroegbu  used to  call  ‘sad face,’ back then, in unec, when she always tried to get me to smile more often. “You don’t know how handsome you  look  when you smile,” she’d smile.

I  was sure I  wasn’t  going to  smile when my new little ‘patient’ friend, the  little girl  recovering  from some  serious injuries, following  a road traffic accident, would  ask for my phone and for me  to  pose  for  a picture.

She has  been  doing that since she became my  friend,  since she started  walking again, after I removed  her last sutures, deeply  rueful that the nylon sutures might have marred her most immaculate skin.

Yet, she’s still such a cute  little  fellow  with  the  loveliest of brown eyes, dimples and an electrifying smile and, since she’s been asking  me  to  pose  for  pictures,  I’ve been managing to smile for her. Strange. But today had started in a bad way and I  didn’t  think I’d smile for  her.

So, ward  round  over,  I went  to  her  room  to give  her  injections,  silently praying that she wouldn’t ask  for my  phone,  for a  pose and her other  demands like me inspecting her wounds and reassuring her that they were all fine- little things her  grandmother told me, a few days ago, “make her- your wife,  happy.”

But, soon as injections were over, the cute voice went “Doctor can I take  a picture of you? You’re  looking fine  today.” She gave  out the  most radiant  smile.

But, I said “no.” “Today is not  a good  day.” I tried not to look at her face.

I wanted to leave  as  soon  as  possible, to go after my chores in the hospital. But,  she  held me  back. “Please, let me  snap  you,” she insisted.

“Next time,” I tried to  sound nice. “I’m busy.”

I knew she wasn’t happy with my ‘impatient’ replies  but, I just had to make her understand that the day wasn’t a good one. I had issues, bearing down on me. And taking pictures was not one of them.

So, I walked away from her room and, into the  oxygen room  to get  my  stethoscope and my new Pharmacology text book. I wanted to read something, in  between attending to the patients.

But, a soft knock soon followed me. And when I opened the door, there was little Ezinne, looking  at  me  imploringly. So imploringly that the scars on her face  appeared more conspicuous.

“Why are you sad?,” her  voice  sounded  broken. “Grandmother said  I shouldn’t  bother my husband  because ‘can’t I see that  he  is  unhappy?’”

She looked at one of her scars,  the  biggest  one on her left thigh- a blackened rough scar, one that’d likely be the reminder of that dark day when she was brought in by the Keke that had knocked her down, her blood dripping here and there, the Keke driver- a chronically ill looking  middle aged man, fidgeting and muttering “I’ve killed somebody’s child.”

“Why is my  husband  sad?” Her eyes looked even more imploring.

There was a moment of silence. And, I could hear the leaves of the pine trees  caressing one another. Then, She began  to cry.

Really?

I  was shocked. I could have said ‘moved’ but, things don’t easily move me when I have issues to sort out especially, financial issues. But, that’s my little friend crying. So, I bent over and consoled her.

The nurses at the table began  to laugh, to ask what was wrong between ‘husband and wife.’

“Stop crying,” I  consoled. “You know I hate to  see you  cry.”

“Then, let me take a picture of you.”

It’s not even as  if  she  knew  how  to  use  the  camera properly. And it’s not as if she got  to keep  any of the pictures she took of me. But, right  there  and  then,  I sensed  that the relationship between us and  the joy she  got  from  it  stemmed  from  me, each  day, looking at each  blurred  pictures  she  took  and  smiling,  calling her a ‘brilliant photographer.’ And  perhaps  because of  the fact  that ‘true friends don’t  feel comfortable when we  don’t  smile,’ as Ugochi  would  often put it during those  days in unec.

So, I decided  to  flash  a smile. No matter  how fake  it  appeared. And, once I had smiled, I  watched  her  face soften up too and, the tears dry away.

I handed her the phone and went to stand in front of the new door, striking my  usual  pose, faking a smile. As always, whenever I’ve had to,  in front of the camera.

Soon, the camera  went off a number of times and the little girl beamed out another  beautiful smile.

“Here,” she  stretched out her hand, bearing the infinix hote note, coming closer to  where I  squatted, tying my  shoes lace.

“See how handsome  you look when  you  smile?” She giggled.

“Grandmother said  my husband  must  be  handsome.” She took my stethoscope from the table and hung it  on my  neck. “Now, off you go to work.”

By now, I couldn’t hold back  the  care  free laughter. Or should I  say ‘emotional laughter.’ Just  as she  could not keep  back her  joy  when  I gave her some eclaise.

We both ended up laughing, till our eyes got  misty.

***

She said “bye,  doctor” and, began  to  walk  away, back to her room, to her grandmother who had called for her to come take her tablets. The limp was still in her steps. And  her full  black  hair  bounced  in a carefree ponytail.

As I watched her  walk,  I thought  about  my  mother  and  how  happy  she would have  been had she been  able to get me to smile and be happy the way little  Ezinne  had  just  done. Especially, on those  beautiful  days  that she  tried  her  best  but  failed  to  make  me  smile.

I thought about having a daughter and naming her Ezinne.

I thought about Mercy-Iroegbu Ugochi Niteh and her sweetness towards me. A friend I’ll never forget.

You cannot go home because the roads are flooded.

You remember that time you drove a woman who was deep into the pain of obstructed labour from her house to the nearby health center.

Her house was in the ghetto in the outskirts of the city and you'd gone there to seek out a Welder when you met her screaming and crying, her unborn baby nearly dead because when you used the fetoscope in your car you found out that the foetal heart rate was on the roof.

You were forced to abandon the Welder and speed off to the health center where you would improvise everything in the process of helping the woman; she, having vehemently refused to go to a hospital.... because... money issues.

You did the section against all odds, using only flashlights supplemented by Android phone lights. There were no boots and no facemasks to protect you from blood splashes.

There were not much in the theater, which had obviously had its days of glory. There were simply nothing but the experience and passion of the matron and the nurses in the center.

Yet, you succeeded in bringing out the baby and after you blew air into his lungs, massaging his heart at the same time, he cried and regained life. And there were choruses of praise to God.

You remember the night that followed that surgery, the way you'd soon lose your job because your boss became unhappy that you had failed to incise a little abscess in the little boy's face because, you'd come back to the hospital an hour later that you should, even though you explained that it was while saving a life that you arrived late.

You're thinking about his words that night....now that you're stepping out from your new place of work. For the first time.

"You're worthless. Leave my establishment." He had sounded so cold...

***

His voice echoes so loud in your head now, as you're driving over the covet. You're rushing to head bridge to get some antibiotics.

The volume is so loud that you nearly fail to hear the voice of the man and the woman who are calling out to you asking for a lift.

When you're sad you hear no voices except songs and poems that soothe the heart. And you are sad most of the time.

"Please, are you going to junction," the man asks, waving you down. "Please, help us. It's about to rain. We're going to junction."

You look at him. You can't really hear him very well because passenger's 'home' was playing.

You turn down the volume even though you're addicted to the lyrics:

'They say fear is for the brave
For cowards never stare it in the eye
So am I fearless to be fearful
Does it take courage to learn how to cry
So many winding roads
So many miles to go.'

Beautiful song.

"Ebe?" you ask, turning to take in the man's face and then, looking away into the distant mirage on the freeway, to make sure it's all clear before you get onto the black asphalt.

When you are finally on the tarmac, you hear him answer, "Junction! Junction," in a raised voice.

So, you pull over to the nearby vegetation and motion him to get into the car. Ifem says you're too nice to strangers, that you always want to pick up people without thinking about the consequences. She says people can be evil.

Her voice echo in your mind and you feel guilty.
You'll explain to her why you're going to pick up this man and woman. Atonement for all the good you've failed at some points to do.

You feel the need to explain, until soon when, after a period of silence, after you've driven past the pharmacy where, just a few days ago, you and the manager had made concerted effort to get a dying man who'd been abandoned to die there, to a hospital, leaving you still feeling guilty, knowing you could've done more, if not that you were rushing back to the hospital to answer an emergency, when the man says something that makes you think there is no need to explain to Ifem anymore why you are in the same car with strangers once again.

It is how the man says the words that gets to you. "My wife has just had a dialysis but, the doctor said that she's reached the point where she'd need a kidney transplant."

It is the helplessness in the tone of his voice, the weakness which contrasts so much with his muscular build and sinewy features that makes you turn to look at him for a long time and then at the woman and ask if 'the wife' is the one on the back seat because, she looks too old to be his wife.

You feel embarrassed and apologize immediately.

"I'm so sorry, I assumed," you plead, turning to wave down a girl selling sachet water.

The weather is so hot with the sun blazing down on the street full of people in a hurry. There is an organized chaos exacerbated by the horns from overloaded lorries. And the noise from speakers announcing cures for staphylococcus eeeerus and tifoid.

Mad city this is.

The satchet water girl, a girl of about eight doesn't have change and before you can say a word, she asks that you forget the money, that she'll complete it with hers.

Her generosity touches you and you decide to give her an extra hundred naira note. But, she runs off to go sell to another scorched buyer.

You try to call her but the man's voice asking you to not bother apologising because you weren't far from the truth, brings you back into the stuffy air of the golf3.

"She used to be beautiful and young," the man says. "She used to feed us while I was in the university, until this illness took her strength away."

You're startled. You never countenanced  the possibility that such a man with such a street build could possibly have gotten a piece of university education.

You assume a lot. You hate yourself. You're silently embarrassed again.

The embarrassment will get worse when, after you get past the monstrous traffic at junction and new parts, and finally on your way to the relatively free expressway, the man says something about residency.

"You're doing your residency?" he asks, looking at you. "Are you specializing in surgery because you keep talking about surgery."

"No," you answer, trying furtively to hide your exasperation. "I'm not yet doing residency. I swore after school to go away from medicine but now, I'm beginning to change my mind. I guess I'll try to get a fellowship, perhaps in therapeutics. As planB, in case my businesses fail."

You always feel embarrassed when you have to explain to people why you are yet to start residency, why you find it almost impossible to commit yourself to it. Why you think the system will break you once again.

It's like the man hears the voice of your mind because just when you're about to delve into self pity, he says something that makes you feel better immediately.

"My brother was a doctor too. He did residency by force because his wife forced him. You're not alone. Some of us want to be somewhere else." He smiles at you, knowingly.

"So, your brother was a doctor? Why do you say it in the past tense?" You turn to look at him before suddenly stepping on the accelerator and asking him to put on his seat belt.

He cooperates. The seat belt clicks and then you hear the sniffing and watch his tears fall. He is crying. It's always an ugly sight when a man cries.

His voice is broken as he begins to speak about his brother. Passionately.

He was a brilliant boy. He was five years his elder. He'd wanted to be a fine artist but he'd been made to become a doctor. He was doing well but, soon after his fellowship in surgery, he died. A very sudden and painful death.

The man looks away at the busy road through building materials market. He's still crying. The streets hustles by.

"My brother would've helped me. His death broke me because I had put every hope in him and just when he was about to make it, he died on his duty post. I know if he is still alive, my wife will certainly live."

"How did he die?" you ask nonchalantly, trying to defuse the situation by your attitude. "How did he go?"

"Lassa Fever. He was working in Ebonyi when Lassa came and killed ten doctors. My brother was the first." He wipes his tears. "I know he'd have raised money for my wife's kidney transplant. But unfortunately..... Life always screws me."

He seems to have had enough of the crying and changes the subject. But, it ends up bringing him back to tears because when he asks you about marriage, you answer that you are married but yet to have children.

So, tearfully, he goes again. "My wife and I are supposed to have four children now but, we lost all of them to hypertension, to miscarriage. Each of them at around six months. They say it was the hypertension that eventually destroyed my wife's kidneys. Four children, doc. Four children, we've lost."

You're lost of words and you just look on. At the police guy checking out the cars. At the roadside mechanic trying to hug a plantain seller. At the long road ahead from Ugwunwasike leading to Awka where the man and his wife are going.

"You'll have more children," you assure, knowing how almost impossible it sounds as the woman in the back seat is as good as going without the transplant.

But, you say it all the same. "All four children, the two boys and the two girls are all going to come back."

"Yes," the man agrees. "I only pray that we'll be able to get the ten million naira it'll require to get her a kidney transplant."

By now you're speeding up towards Ogbunike and Ogidi, Achebe's home town. You think about Achebe and you momentarily wish you can write like he did so that you'll tell this man's story properly. It hurts you that you can't.

Yet, you promise to try. "Nna, I don't have money ooo. I'm still struggling to get above water but, I'll try to tell your story."

You hand him a thousand Naira note. "Here, take it for transport home."

You want to drop them off at Ogbunike in order to get back on your way to head bridge. But then, the woman cannot get down so easily.

She's weak and shaky. Her skin is unusually dark in the way a sick person's shouldn't even be.

You look at her and imagine how beautiful she must have been before the illness, how much dreams she must have had. Dreams about children. A home. A career. A life.

How sad the situation looks now. You can tell. You see the pain in her eyes.

You look up the sky and the cloud is really getting darker. You can't just leave them here so, you'll drive further to Afọr Igwe where they'll get a straight bus to Awka.

The Man is grateful. And on the way, he will tell you more about his family. How he'd met his wife in 2006. How he'd promised never to leave her and how that promise has encouraged him to keep persisting in his quest to save her.

He had a shop in Lagos. He loved education. He got admission in the university to study parasitology because he wanted to find a solution to the lassa fever which had killed his brother. So he left his shop in his wife's custody.

They nearly had children but lost all four of them. They were still struggling well until the disease came.

You'll listen without saying much. You're in a hurry to know more about the man because you're already running out of time.

So when he tries to get the story back to you, to your own life by asking "what do you intend to do now about residency? Will you try?" you stop him by asking how far he's gone in his quest to get help.

You already feel guilty by telling your own little pain in the face of the real pain the man and his wife are facing . "How far have you gone in terms of getting help?" You look at his wife.

He laughs at your question. "Ten million naira!"

He laughs again. "Who'll give you that? Almost all the people and Government have been delaying us and doing us turn turn. We can't even feed now talk more of having dialysis."

He stops suddenly. Seems he remembers something. I understand when he adds "But our church people are helping. There are other people too but they don't like their names mentioned."

He apologizes for almost failing to recognize those that are helping. "Pain and fear makes one forget the favors he gets," he explained.

***

His wife speaks. For the first time. You're startled but you urge her to continue with what she's just saying, something in the line of having a solution to all the problems.

You will have to continue taking until she says that she's been pleading with her husband to let her die in peace and go on with his life. 😳😳😳😳😭😭😭

"Doc," She calls you. "Please tell him to just leave me to go. He's trying to go down with me. He's love has been overwhelming. He's never hurt me. He has tried. I want him to save himself and leave me to my fate." She suddenly goes quiet.

Her husband starts crying again.

He is wiping his tears. His tears which bring your attention to the fact that it's already raining and that you need to switch on the wiper. You do that and continue driving.

There's silence. Seconds. Minutes. Close to an hour. You're driving slow because of the flood water.

You'll remain silent until you get to Afor Igwe where you'll take the pictures below and finally exchange contact with the man. And note his detail.

His name is Magnus Odimgbe. And his wife is Uju Odimgbe. And they live in Awka, behind Ezeanwanyi, Aquinas area.

He needs help. No matter how little.

His bank details are:

Bank: First bank.

Account name: Odimgbe Magnus Echezona

Account number:3043620466

***

When you drop them off at Afọr Igwe, the rain has already flooded the way back. You're told by a bus driver.

You'll have to wait for the waters to drain. You only hope you don't get to lose your job again.

©Nnaemeka Ugwu.
17/6/19

The red whirlwind.

                                       

The first day I read ‘psalm 88’ was on a day like this. A dull day, filled with untraceable feelings of emptiness. I had stumbled on the psalm, while praying my rosary, in penance, a few days prior.

I was a  teenager. 19 years old and fresh from making the 5th best result in WAEC in my school.   Plus a fine jamb score and  a name for my family because, everyone in the hood talked about me, my family. “Oga, ‘Allied forces!’” they  hailed my father, “we’ve heard what your son did, you’re going to be called nna doc.”

And, it made him happy, my father, added to his new found happiness, since Abdulsalami  Abubakar improved the lot of the federal  workers, following the death of the previous dictator.

It made my mother happy too, made her smile more often. She called me ‘nna m,’ more often. “Nnam, ime aga, how are you, Papa?”

She’s always believed that I am her father, reincarnate and so, whenever she got emotional, she’d call me ‘Papa.’ She did it a lot on those days that I  made her happy.

And, my sisters too, they were so proud. The little ones bragged about me. “Emeka, ba’anyi has set a new record in this neighborhood,” they bragged. “Imakwa n’onwe nine As, he got nine As?”

Everyone else came to congratulate me. “It’s not easy o! To write WAEC without 'expo' and still make only As and Bs. No Cs at all. And also, to smash Jamb, in the first sitting...You’ve done well, Emmy…”

I only nodded and shook hands, trying to smile too, to make it seem all was well. Because they all wanted me, the boy who never caused any trouble, to be well.

But, on that dreary morning on which I read that chapter of the psalms, I couldn’t hide it anymore- the silent  tears.

It was in the middle of a  heavy  Nsukka  Harmattan, full of cold red  wind and late aunt Rose had come visiting.  She  wore her favourite  sequined red  gown and laughed and sang her way, happy for her nephew who looked like her late brother, into the room where I had been, reading the Bible,  feeling like I  should  die.

It didn’t take long for her to find me out, even as I hugged her with a smile, like I did everyone else. She noticed, as she held me after the hug. Then,  she asked “Why aren’t you happy, Emeka?”

I was jarred out of my façade.

How did she  notice? How could she have heard  the stifled murmuring of  my soul, in spite of the noise and chaos of slaughter road?

I tried to find an escape. “Aunty, I’m ok. Maybe, it’s the psalm I’d been reading. It’s a sad story. Maybe it’s what’s changed my mood...” but, she didn’t buy it.

She  probed further, looking into my eyes, trying to see the face of my spirit.

“You don’t seem happy; you’ve never looked  happy. I’ve been looking at you since you were born. You’ve never smiled, freely,  like a teenager should. And now, you’ve  made everyone happy, except you. What’s wrong? What  is happening inside your soul?”

She spoke like a philosopher, my late aunt. Mother said she was their maternal grandmother, reincarnate.

I didn’t have any answer. And so, I looked at my toes and could do nothing else but cry, my whole body shivering.

“I don’t know, aunty, I don’t know but, everything seems dark, there’s no light in  my life…,” I  tried to use the words I had learnt in a poem, because I didn’t know any other way, to explain how I felt. Poetry always came handy, those days.

Silence. Distant noise from the streets. I could hear my heartbeat.

Then, aunty  hugged me again, this time, holding me tight. “It’s OK, nna. Ozugo, Papa,” she whispered. She sounded much like mama.

She asked me to dress up and come with her to Erina. She had come all the way from Ogbede, solely, to take me out, to celebrate my success.

That was the day, I started understanding myself, my soul, my life, because aunty sat down with me, to  talk it over. And, showed me the way.

She spoke vaguely about grandfather.

She said “You are your grandfather. He was brooding, too. Quiet, just like you. He was like you are now; he too, felt the same hunger for light, the same emptiness, in spite of his fortune. He  never took joy in materials things. He too, couldn’t figure out why he lapsed into sadness, in spite of the good things around, like when he bought his first car; he was the first person to buy a car in the whole of Ukehe.”

I listened, pretending to be eating the ice cream, on the table. It nauseated me. Heck!

What was happening to me? I was supposed to be reveling in the glory that surrounded me but, instead, I was overwhelmed with sadness.

She looked  at the piece of  paper on  the table, in which I had been scribbling a poem, a sad poem and, when she was done reading it, she continued, “So, don’t worry, this is how you were made. This is your design. You’ll achieve a lot. You’ll make your family proud but, don’t be afraid when you don’t enjoy the happiness. Because, just like your grandfather, you’re one of those who’ll play the role of the sentry . You  know  the  world  is a stage,  we all  have  our  roles  to  play.”

She let the paper fly away in the red whirlwind that had been building, outside. It got overwhelmed in the red dust, till I could see it no more.

She went on to say a lot of things some of which I understood, some of  which I didn’t understand. But, that word ‘role,’ together with ‘design’ that she had mentioned, steered my soul towards a little light.

I got to know the reason for my frequent state of unhappiness. I got to know what to look for in my search for light. I got to understand what  life, was all about- that people are different; that while  some people will always smile and laugh and dance, some will be like the sentry , sober, sad, at times, lonely and, far  removed from the merriment. But, in all of that, one  had to still find contentment. Because we all have unique designs.

“Your  grandfather was wealthy, he was the first to buy a car in  the whole of ukehe. He was revered. He was a legend. But, he did not feel the glory, the glamour. His happiness came from the feeling that he was doing the right thing. He valued  the fact that he was not a waste, more than the money. He was like Antonio, in the ‘Marchant of Venice.’ Perhaps, in fact, you’re like that,” she said, before looking me in the eyes, now,  more intensely, “You’ll learn how to embrace your soul, the way it is.”

And so, the years came and went. And in each, I’ve tried to understand more about life, about my life.

The years of medical school taught me that I wasn’t always going to be among the best,  no matter how hard I studied. I accepted it, acknowledged that everyone will not always be the best at a particular thing, at the same time.

So, when a secondary school friend of mine stopped talking to me when I had to drop a year, I didn’t think of killing myself. I understood, I had a different path. I forgave.

The loss of my first love, Ogoo, taught me that I could be rejected at times and that it’s as normal as anything, that my youthful good looks wasn’t  everything, that love is a two edged sword.

So, when she told me, on a rainy Sunday night “ I’ll never be yours,” I didn’t die  of depression. Rather, I embraced the loss and turned my pain into poetry.

The year after graduation, taught me that graduation wasn’t the end of all my troubles. That  for a man, troubles and difficulties never ends. So, when our licence was withheld for 7 months, because we had quarreled with the Dean, I did not think of taking  the pills. I understood that success and obstruction, sometimes, go hand in hand.

And during my first job, as a house officer, I realised that life can be brutal, that  there are many things, out there,  waiting  to  kill  a man. So, I learnt how  to  be careful about my ways. I also learnt that I had the capacity to improve myself and go from being seen as the laziest, to been loved, as the more hardworking.

NYSC taught me, to do my utmost best, to survive. And that my country doesn’t really give a shit about me, that I have to think about creating jobs, instead of waiting for one.

And so, on.

In all of those years, in the midst of the chaos and noise and mistakes and guilt and success and failure and little  flashes of joy, I’ve been carried through, by the one thing, the one understanding: It  gets easier when one embraces one’s soul. Just as aunt Rose said many years ago.

“Embrace your soul, learn to always understand that happiness and sadness are like day and night; you experience both and while you might love one, more than the other, you still need two of them and you can channel them, into strength.”

Embracing my soul meant that I stopped taking things so deeply, brushing off the many episodes of depression with the belief, that we’ve all been designed and equipped to survive our roles. No matter how horrific; that survival, is all in our minds.

***
So,  today, after a night of  insomnia and  thinking about the nation, about my life and the fact that I am not now, where  I am supposed to be, that some people I was better than, are now above me, that I’ve been stagnating and, about everything else that is wrong with the world, I was tempted to slide  into that dark mood again. That mood that makes everything seem hopeless.

Then, I remembered aunt Rose and her  last words, the day I went to Ogbede to tell her about my difficulties in my  practice. “Embrace both the mistakes and the failures, the guilt and the carefree state, the joy and the pain, the good and the bad and, try to rise above them. Use them to build new strength, new energy.”

And so, I’ll try to rise now, again, above it all. To keep the fight going, to be content with the purity of the effort and work, to understand again, that day and night are the same necessities of life and that all the things that try to take the joy away are only but, the price we pay for living.

I will keep mother's words closer now. "He who's still fighting is not yet defeated."

***

With mother and eldest sister.


©Nnaemeka Ugwu

I want to come home with you

I want to come home with you.

I was walking along the road to buy food from the mama put who cooked delicious egusi and onugbo soup. I was really hungry and needed to eat something fast but I was too weak to walk. Work had been unusually too busy of late. So, I dragged myself as fast as I could, all the while, thinking about home, when things were still good, about Ifem and her delicious cooking then, about the times when it was so easy to laugh. It was nightfall after all, the time I loved to enjoy my reverie the most. I was lost in it when the girl pulled my hands suddenly to stop me. "Good evening sir!"

I turned sharply to look at her, surprised, and at the same time, angry that she had the nerve to pull my hands. A total stranger. But then, I looked at her face, the innocence written on it, the slight uncertain smile, and I melted. A girl of 20 whose eyes told the story of a brittle despair. Especially when she pleaded, "please do you have any money to give me? I haven't eaten since morning and I do not know what to do."

Her words rolled out too quickly, too easily in a startling way. She said that the lock down was making life difficult for her. That she was visiting a friend from Lagos because the friend had promised to get her a job, that she was still searching for the job when the lock down came and made things difficult. "I really need help sir. Anything would be appreciated."

I had only ₦500 on me and that was 'home and abroad' because nothing else was left.The dinner I was going to buy was like a 'last supper'. Because certain failures by the government had left me stranded.

Yet, I couldn't ignore this girl's difficulties. And so I decided to split the money in two. "I don't have much," I explained. "But I can give you a little from this money after I must have bought my food." I asked her to walk with me so that I'd give her the change after buying the food.

As we walked, we talked about things. About her preparations for JAMB, her difficulties at home. She said she was the first child, that she just wanted to get out of home in order to see what life was about out there. That her step father wasn't kind to her. She said she needed the freedom and were it not for the lock down, she would've been happier.

I listened, wondering what it was that made her so comfortable with me, a stranger she'd just met, what it was that was going on on her mind, why she wasn't scared of me and so, I asked her why. "Why are you so free to tell me all that? Why aren't you scared?"

I had to interrupt her with the question because she talked so freely. And I had expected her to be startled but she wasn't. Instead, she smiled and said that she had seen my face and had felt it was the least scary, that she had told herself before walking up to me, that I couldn't hurt her, that all I could ask would certainly not go beyond sex, and that it was something she wouldn't mind giving since she already liked me from a far. She looked at me and smiled a little bit more elaborately. A knowing smile. Assured and unwavering. It felt powerful enough to seduce the unguarded soul.

We were now close to the cross road and so, even though I had been so stunned by her boldness and had wanted to talk about it, I kept calm as we waded through the maze of Okadas, and traffic. But, I kept turning the whole thing in my mind. What else could this child must have done since her travails started? Who knew how many men she must have given herself to just in order to eat? I couldn't help thinking of my little nieces. She was just about their age.

After buying the food, I decided that the ₦250 change was too small and so I asked her if she would follow me to my house so I could give her some uncooked rice and more change. "My place is not far," I pointed. "It's just a few minutes walk."

She followed me.

I couldn't stop thinking about her slight frame and chocolate skin. I wondered how much longer before the freshness and firmness of her body would be gone. Plundered by opportunistic men.

As we walked, we talked some more. This time, I did most of the talking. About the mess in the country, about the virus, about how she should focus on her studies and try to get home quickly once the lock down was over, about trying to repair her relationship with her dad. She had spoken of him earlier with obvious disgust.

I told her also, to be careful with men, especially harmless looking ones like me. "We could be dangerous too," I pointed out, looking at the mark on her neck. A statement which made her smile. Especially, when she began explaining that she had been seeing me for quite some time, that considering all the men she had been tempted to give herself to, that I would be the least evil among them. "I'm even attracted to you," she said, trying to avoid my eyes.

She was now more thoughtful as she added that she knew that one way or another, she could certainly be forced to sleep with a man for food and that she would he happy to do it with the man she'd grown to like. "All the times I've seen you pass by, you've looked harmless. I like you."

I was again stunned. Her boldness and openness were remarkable. I had never seen it before. I mean... this is Nigeria where if you said something personal, people would rush to use it against you. Why was this girl behaving totally different? We talked until we got to the house and I pointed. We're here. "Would you like to come in?"

"Yes. I would love to."

We were half way through the stirs when I changed my mind. I worried that the hallway was too dark, that it could make her uncomfortable and so I asked her to stop, to wait for me beside the jeep parked outside. I tried to smile as I touched her shoulder gently. "I hope you don't mind." I watched her face. It suddenly lost the smile and enthusiasm. I wondered if it would have looked same had she seen my ring, had I told her that I was married.

I soon returned to see her leaning on the car. "Is it yours?" she asked as she thanked me for the rice and little change. She whipped out her infinix spark. "Let me have your number," she thrust it towards me. "I'd love to chat."

I held the phone. A little while. A few minutes. Then a few more, all the while turning over in my mind, the difficulties that might have put this girl in such a situation as to actively seek out men, the unfairness of it all. The fact that the society was gradually breaking even the children amongst us. Her native hair style reminded me of Reginald Nwankwo's girl friend in the story 'girls at war,' and her famous request "if you must shell, please don't send in the boys," in reference to sex and not releasing of sperm, and I felt like crying at that very moment. I looked at her tiny waist and wondered if she would even be able to take in a full grown man. She looked almost like a teenager.

The rustle of the wind outside broke my thoughts. It was brewing. As if to usher in a minor storm. And so I tapped her shoulder. Out of the blue. "You have to go before it rains. You have to run now."

She looked up and I saw her eyes; they were sad. "I can stay for the night with you," she said, unwilling to take the first step towards the gate. "My friend told me to find a good man and satisfy him, to get him to love me and care for me." She held my hand and rubbed it gently. "Don't you like me?" Her voice was broken. So broken that it got to me as much her soft palms and the caress.

But I pulled my hands away, gently. "You're a child my dear. I like you but you're a child. It wouldn't be fair if I should take advantage of you."

My mind became full of emotions. I wished I could have been able to give her my number and keep in touch. I wished I could have been able to give her a little more help. But, my thoughts would soon be cluttered by the sound of the minor storm. And my anger against the world and how it breaks the children before they're grown.

©Nnaemeka Ugwu.

June 2020.

A blood stained wrist band. (For those who daily, suffer in the hands of rapists.)

                                                                       

He was bloodied and perhaps, disoriented. I couldn’t tell because I wasn’t close to him at the moment; I was trying to get into a vein in the arm of a day old child. But, I watched him from where I stood, as his fingers and toes twitched, his blood dripping from his body like rain from a leaky roof, as the stretcher rolled him in; something that looked like a large machete cut sliced his face apart. I could hear his groans- deep throated, and guttural. I could hear the song he was trying to sing, something about God not letting him die from the cuts of the wicked one, even though it was barely audible as it was masked by the shuffling sound of the hurried feet of the nurses and the broken voice of a girl who followed from a distance, crying. “My brother! My only brother!” 

I looked at her with pity. Looking at her reminded of the woman who had come with her sick child yesterday, holding him so close to her chest, screaming at him to never shame her, pressing his face so tight to her breasts that I feared she was going to suffocate him. The girl’s clothes were torn, her hair disheveled. There was a trickle of blood on her left thigh. Her face screamed for help.

But, I wasn’t focused on her as I hurried down to the man on the stretcher, my steps running into each other; I was as shaken as the people who were almost all on their feet, mouths open; hearts, beating fast, because the wound was enormous. It was during the period of the attacks and I had been seeing such cases. Knife cuts here, bullet wounds there, and I had been coping. But they were all little compared to what stared me now, in the face. A boy whose face I was trying to place somewhere at the recess of my mind, whose bloodied piercing eyes reached out to my heart and squeezed it to the point that I felt his soul reaching out and holding my hand, asking, “help me! Please, help me, brother”.

The voice sounded familiar; I felt a personal contact with him that I couldn’t explain. And so, I quickened my steps and ran from the stretcher to the changing room where I pulled out my white shirt, and covered my body with the scrubs and the apron, gloved my hands and covered my eyes and nose. The nurses got the stitches, the forceps, the swabs, and the injections. They were unusually fast because one of them had recognized the patient. I went back to him and stood over his face. “What happened to you?” I asked, lifting his hands which covered the wound.

His eyes were closed. So, I wasn’t sure whether he had heard me, whether he could see me; the blood was thick over his eye, and I needed to get his face free from it. It was the right thing to do even as his pains made my hands unsteady, for with every dabbing of the swab, every piercing of the stitch, his pain sent shock waves over my entire body; he gnashed his teeth ceaselessly. I worked double fast in a bid to finish before the pain killer would wear down. And soon, we bandaged his face, to the relief of the young student nurse who was almost crying in sympathy. I quickly wrote down instructions for the nurses to take him into the ward. It was raining and the weather was cold. It made his body shiver, his teeth clattering, making it difficult for me to hear when he called out my name. “Doctor Nna, do you remember me? Don’t you remember the day of the shooting and how you saved my life?” his voice sounded as if he was about to cry. It broke something in me.

My memories back to the last two years, when we had first met, years which had been nothing short of painful and haunting for me, years full of nightmares about the deaths and anguish and injustice. I dropped the folders I was carrying and made a few steps backwards towards him. I looked at him and saw the red stain in his left eye. And then, I remembered. I had seen it too on the day of the shooting, the day he was brought in with tens of other young men who were reportedly shot by some men in uniform, simply because, in their own words, they had come into the town at night, to sing and remember their heroes who had died in the war. The scars were unmistakable. His name flashed in my mind. “Chike!” I called out softly, reaching to touch his face. “What happened to you?” I asked carefully, trying to keep my voice down because I didn’t want the men in uniform, sitting on chairs a few paces away to hear. I feared they would keep their eyes on him, if they heard us.

And so I kept my eyes on his wrist band of the flag with the green, red, and black colours, and the half of a yellow sun. My eyes got misty looking at it because, the colours reminded me of that night of blood and tears, of Chukwuemeka, the fair boy who had laid side by side with Chike, breathing heavily as he handed me a little flag of same colors before saying his last words, “remember us doc. Remember that we did nothing wrong but sing and pray for our dead heroes.”

I loved to see that Chike was still alive, that he still held onto the colours in spite of all that had happened to him and his brothers. Things I would hear on the next day after the shootings, were unspeakable. Things about how according to reports, the injured boys with different degrees of gunshot injuries were whisked away by men in uniforms to different places unknown, with no atom of mercy and considerations of their injuries. Stories about how some of them had been bathed in acid. Stories of some of them being made to drink and swim in mud waters. Stories of inhumane things beyond imaginings. Stories of how people went online to point at their dead bodies and laugh.

I wanted to hug him with the colours yet, I had to take the wrist band away from him. Because I knew it wasn’t safe for him to be holding onto it at that very moment. I had recently been told about a mass arrests of boys and men like him, who had memorabilia of the war, following the most recent ‘sit at home’ call that their organization had issued. I felt his pain as he looked at me imploringly as I slipped the wristband from him, mumbling with a great difficulty, “Please don’t… doc… Let it stay with me in case I die”. There was something painful about taking something so dear to a man especially, when the man was helpless.  I knew he would have fought me off as he did on that day of the killings but, somehow, I felt fortunate now, even with the pain, that he couldn’t. “You do realize that you can’t fight for the land of the rising sun, if you’re taken away today?” I whispered as I folded the wristband into the pocket of my ward coat.

I tried not to think too much about his pains as I walked away, leaving the nurses to do their job. I instead, kept my mind occupied by the mini storm outside as the rain got harder, like the weight on my chest. The past haunted me with a renewed fierceness. I wished I could have saved them all. I wished I could’ve saved Chukwuemeka, and Omenka, and Obinna. I wished I could’ve stopped the cold hands of death, even though it overwhelmed the world on that night. I wished I had the powers of a god, to raise those who had died. Their voices would be in my head till daybreak when I would come back to know what exactly had happened to Chike. I had been too focused on stopping the bleeding to have bothered to hear the full story.

My night was a cacophony of nightmares. Even though it was full moon and I was supposed to revel in the winds and chirpings of the insects. My head was full of voices; voices of heroes dropping dead in battle at Onicha and Uzuakoli while charging against tanks and rapid machine guns. I thought and dreamt of children dying of kwashiorkor, their bellies rising to the sky in protest to the gods who had abandoned them. I saw my late father running from the blackness of the Illshyns as they bombed and strafed Onicha. I heard the cries of the women who were raped, sometimes, to death. I dreamt so much that my head was full of aches when I woke up on the couch in the consulting room. I looked up and saw the nurse standing at the door. It was daylight and I hadn’t seen the sun as it rose. I hadn’t even heard the early morning songs of the birds. I only saw the nurse. She said that Chike wanted to see me. I followed her to the ward. It was unusually calm now. I looked up and saw Chike.

I smiled, looking down at him. He was now trying to sit up on the bed even as he held his head in his palms, wincing in pain. “Guy, how far? Why don’t you want me to sleep?” I stared at his bandaging which was already soaked in blood. I found it difficult to look at it because it reminded me of that night, of all the blood and deaths. He tried to smile back. “I am getting a little more stable.” His effort to speak seemed to have made the blood soaked bandage begin to drip blood. He touched the trickle of blood and suddenly, the smile was gone. There was the renewal of the pain. I asked the nurse to get the things we would need in order to change the dressing. My voice was getting broken and my mind was about slipping back into the past and the scene of death and pain. I was brought back by Chike’s words. He was asking for his sister. “Doc you need to find her,” he managed to say, trying to fight the tears.  “You need to take good care of her. You need to test her because she was raped.” He shook his head, as if weighed down by the sound of that awful word. I remembered, at once, the little girl with the trickle of blood on her left thigh. She was lying on a piece of cardboard mat beside her brother. I reached out for her and helped her rise. I took her in to the consulting room.

I sat her down on the chair directly facing mine and looked into her deep piercing brown eyes and torn clothes and superficial bruises and scratches which marred her near perfect yellow skin. I watched the furrows on her face, betraying her broken emotions. I watched as she breathed ever so slightly, her chest moving in rhythm with her shoulders heaving slightly up and down. I stared at the tear trails in her eyes. Trails which would become wetter when I asked her to tell me what had actually happened and she would find it difficult to speak. I reached for her hand and squeezed it so gently, urging her to tell me everything. She couldn’t stop herself from crying and so I had to strain to pick up the words.

She had gone to the farm to harvest cassava. It was midday and the farm was not peopled. She was almost done when she heard footsteps and animals hoofs stumping the earth, getting louder and louder, bearing down on her. She had gotten scared immediately but was still a little confident because she knew that her brother was bathing in the stream a few poles away where he was setting his fish traps. But, before she knew what was happening, four cattle men had descended on her. They were wry and tall, their lean build and light skin highlighting their narrow facial features and tribal marks. They were not Igbo. They spoke French and a little broken English. And another language I would later be told, sounded totally alien.

They had daggers which were drawn, looking so sharp that their surfaces threw the light of the sun into her eyes. They surrounded her and demanded that she stripped for them. “Nyamiri, down,” they ordered, circling her, gesticulating at the ground, making a sign for her to remove her clothes. She had wanted to refuse but, had changed her mind when she realized that her assailants could easily kill her brother if she would alert him. He was her only brother and so, she wouldn’t risk his life. If it would take giving up herself to protect his life she was going to do it. So she asked them to keep the daggers and do it peacefully.

She took a few seconds now, and again to catch her breath as she spoke. “Doctor, I thought it was going to be bearable,” she sobbed. “But, I was wrong because they entered me very rough. They scratched my private parts. They cut little wounds in them in order for them to lick the blood, they wanted to take me with them afterward, to let their cattle enter me, too.” Her shoulders suddenly began to shake as she could not control her emotions anymore. My head got shaken too, and I became dazed. There was a certain kind of noise and cry coming from the labour ward but, I couldn’t hear it clear enough. The fan twirled and the children at the out-patient made their noises but, it all felt in my head like the world was about to crash in a very loud burst. I felt my shirt too tightly. I unknowingly unbuttoned it and stood up. I walked to her and held her. I was careful not to let her see my own heavily misty eyes.

“So what happened next, how did they get to nearly kill your brother?” I asked. I was struggling to conceal the fast developing crack in my own voice. I wanted her to be strong enough to finish her story about how her brother had come out at the point when the last of her assailants were on top of her. How he had come running toward her, muscles rippling, sweat, flowing like rain water, machete raised in the air as he ran and screamed, “nwannem oooo!” she wiped her tears. “He kept charging towards me, his machete raised, until the man who was holding me down, knocked me so hard with the head of his machete and I lost consciousness. I know he tried to fight them, and I think that’s when they nearly killed him.” I watched her breathing become more and more raspy. I watched her yellow skin turn entirely red. And I couldn’t bear it anymore. I freed my arms from hers and went outside. “Stop crying, child.” I called her ‘child’ because she was barely seventeen.

The day was getting older gradually. The birds were flying home. I could hear their distant songs. Earlier I had looked outside and for a brief moment thought about going outside to chase after the glass coloured Aku, flying in the newly freshened wind, like we did when we were children. I watched through the window as the cloud got dark again in preparation for another rain. The wind blew up red whirl wind and debris now and again. It was so cold, it reminded me of childhood in Nsukka. I had many out patients waiting and so I had to hasten up. I took the little girl to the lab for basic test. I wasn’t surprised when she tested negative for HIV and hepatitis. But, I was scared of the future. So I gave her the anti-retroviral myself. I told her relatives about hepatitis B immunoglobulin if they could afford to buy it. I wondered if the government would be able to help with the bill if they were to be informed of the attack. But then, I remembered that Chike and his group had been declared a terrorist group and so, I had to shelve the idea of going to report the case myself.

The rest of my day was too heavy with the image of the girl’s tears and sadness. There were too many questions in my head than I could answer. Why was the country letting this injustice happen? Why wasn’t the police doing something to curb the menace? Why was it becoming normal for blood to flow from the innocent? Every day we woke up to bloody news of an attack here, of killings there. People couldn’t even travel to the capital without dying of fear of being kidnapped. Some people, like Amaria, my customer could not even travel to their villages at the rich Benue basin anymore because, as she put it, their villages had been taken over by armed men who killed for fun. Why would cattlemen, as Dr Obinna put it, from different parts of West Africa have unfettered access to indigenous lands, to rape, to pillage and to kill? When would the people of this side of the divide truly have peace again?

I remembered often, as I walked through the wards, setting lines, reviewing my new admissions, making the nurses do their jobs, the thing Chike told me after I had splintered his broken leg and resuscitated him on the night of the shootings. He had told me that their resistance was aimed at achieving freedom for our people as it was paramount in securing the land from those who would seek to forcibly take it from the native owners. “We are at risk of extinction, brother,” he had said with great difficulty following the gunshot. “Our resistance is aimed at stopping it.”  I thought about the words resistance. There were now, too many questions I needed to ask him. Especially looking at him lying so sorrowful and broken on that bed, without his wrist bands and the colours which he had embedded in every light ray in his life. What was it that propelled him in his deep conviction that he and his group were capable of achieving the things he had told me they wanted to achieve? What was on his mind as the cattle men dug their daggers repeatedly into his flesh? Why was it so had for him to forget the war of many years ago and the heroes who had fought there in?

On the night of the shootings he had been so fascinated about the heroes that he couldn’t stop talking about them, especially when out of the necessity to give them hope as they lay writhing in pain and tears, rolling in their own blood and waste, watching their comrades die from the bullets of those who had killed millions of their kit and kin a few years ago, I started a detailed history of each of the men who had given their all during the great war. His eyes lit up from where he lay on the couch, wincing in pain from the wooden splinters, when I told the story of the junction, the great ambush at Abagana, and the story of Okigbo and his last poem, as he lay dying at Opi: when you have finished and done up my stiches, wake me near the alter and this poem will be finished... That was when, out of something I termed delirium Chike had promised to also lay down his own life like the heroes, a declaration which had drawn a strong rebuke from me, until a look at his face and the determination, the unyielding resolve in it, made me understand: that some people are too vested in an ideology for one to try to ask them why? His favorite heroes were Gossens and his boys who paid the price during operation Hiroshima at Onicha. I remembered his eyes and the light in them when I described a veteran’s account of that big battle that killed the mercenary, and the fight to retrieve his giant white body afterward. I relied now, on those memories as I tried not to focus too much on the little girl’s tears. I was reminiscing when the shrill voice of the young nurse broke my thought. “Doctor! Doctor! The patient is gasping! He is dying!”

I rushed to the ward to see Chike struggling for air. The ward was in a state of chaos as the people gathered around him, praying. His mother was in their midst, tearing at her hair and face. “My boy! My only boy!” The nurses were in a hurry, doing the things required at such moments to keep the hands of death away. I ran as fast as I could, my unbuttoned ward coat fluttering in the air as the stethoscope dangled here and there. My heart beat fast. I was worried that his people’s delay to move him to the teaching hospital as soon as I had stitched him up and stabilized him would now prove to be expensive. I quietly prayed that there would be time still because, I didn’t want him to die. He had already started calling me ‘friend’ and ‘brother’, already told me that he was a Chelsea fan; that he was in love with poetry, that he loved my ways; that he would own a dairy farm once it was safe to live in the forests of his village once again.  I asked the gods to help him, to help me. But alas, they didn’t hear me because when I got to the scene and placed a stethoscope on his chest, there was no sound coming forth from his heart. His skin was cold. His eyes were fixed in a cold stare into the limitless horizon. When I turned his body to take a look at his sides, I saw the paper on which his roughly written words, read “I wish I were a thousand men.” He was dead.

The shrill cries that followed the death tore through the ward, and the cold, and the furious winds which bended the pine trees that surrounded the hospital. The little nurse was the first to walk away into the nurses’ changing room where I was sure she had been to cry her pent up tears; I had seen the tears build up persistently because she had known Chike since they were children. I tried in vain to get hold of Chike’s mother and his sister who threw herself on the floor several times, crying “this is the end! This is the end!” I couldn’t keep his relatives who had come to see him from breaking into tiny pieces. I couldn’t even keep my own tears from falling. For in his startled eyes and trails of blood and mucus, in the sadness on his cold face, the sadness of dreams that would now never be realized, I saw every bit of the decades of pain on the shoulders of the people, our people. And for a moment, I wished for freedom from whatever it was that had consistently broken our people and made such faces as Chike’s, a regular in many clans in our land. I began to cry when the matron came to help me walk away from the scene. She had been with me on that bloody night of the shootings and had seen how it would tear me apart the days that followed. I was only glad to walk away until I saw the little girl walking towards me, asking for her brother’s colours and wrist band. “I want it, doctor. Please give it to me,” she pleaded in between sobs, her right palm outstretched, her eyes boring a hole through my heart.

I had to look at her for a while before I could pick up the fire which now, was beginning to overwhelm the pain in her eyes, increasingly washing it away. I watched as it dried up her tears and as the heaving of her shoulders consistently disappeared and in place of it, a straightened frame of sinewy bones. Her shoulders were suddenly broad; I could see the rippling of her biceps. “Why do you want it?” I asked, turning fully away from the matron to face her. I wanted to point her to the uniformed men sitting just a few beds away, their assault rifles looking so menacing and cold. I wanted to tell her about the increased spate of arrests of people having those colours on their bodies, in recent times, to tell her that she would be better off without her brother’s attachment to those colours but, her words stopped me as did the new stoic and firm expressions on her face. She had totally stopped crying and wiping her eyes now. It was hard to understand that she had been the girl whom a few minutes ago, was throwing herself on the ground repeatedly. Her calmness screamed at the utter despondence surrounding the rest of us in the ward. I didn’t even know when I dipped my hands in my ward coat and produced the wrist band and the colours. I watched her slip the blood stained wrist band into her wrist and folding the little flag into a triangular shape, walk briskly away from the ward.

Outside, the rain storm raged on. And our tears were drowned by the sound of breaking tree branches.

** *
File this story as fiction.

By Nnaemeka Ugwu. All rights reserved.
May, 2020.

On the edge of doom. ( for all health workers fighting COVID-19. We remember.)

Dr Obinna and I had just finished discussing about his daughter’s sudden death of a few weeks ago, about his unflinching insistence that she would have survived had he had the money to take her to the specialist hospital, about my theory that she would have died anyway, considering that that was how God wanted it, when his wife called to tell him about their son’s illness; he had fallen ill shortly after his twin sister passed on.

The phone was on speaker and so I heard what she said to him and the tone with which she spoke, sounding as though she was reaching out on the phone to hold his hands. “Baby,” she cried. “Junior is very sick now and I can no longer manage him at home. We need to get him to a hospital.” She was crying and it muffled her words. I could perceive how much distress she must have been in, considering that the last time she visited, she was already talking about the family being at a breaking point.
Obinna held the phone but did not speak. His mouth was open and I was sure he really wanted to say something but he couldn’t. I could see his hands shaking, his face telling a story of utter despondence.

I reached out to hold him. “Take it easy bro, we will definitely find a solution,” I consoled, desperately, wishing that my words would make an impact. Only that I knew they didn’t because I knew my friend. He was a man who believed in the things he could see and touch and not in hope because, as he often put it, “hope is uncertain. To believe in it, is at best dangerous.”

His wife was still speaking, narrating how the illness had a taken a turn for the worse, how junior had convulsed a few minutes ago, how she’s finding it increasingly difficult to find his veins, how she couldn’t even afford to buy food and drugs anymore because all the money at home had finished. She was still crying. Until Obinna stopped her.

“I heard you, Nkem,” he pleaded. “I heard what you said. My only problem is that I can’t really secure a new loan now because everyone is complaining that there is no money.” He seemed to rush through his words. Because soon after he finished asking her to give him a few minutes to think things over, he broke down and cried, his whole body shaking, tears and mucus flowing without control.

That was what he didn’t want her to know, to hear. His sad moans. The last time I saw him cry that way was when his father died in UNTH when he was in final year and his father needed a big sum of money for a surgery, a sum which Obi and his little ones could not afford until the man died. A death that struck so much blow on him that he vowed never to be in a situation where lack money would mean the death of a loved one. It spurred him on to work so hard for his final exams, to graduate despite having to work a night job in a hotel in order to feed himself. And now that such a situation was about to come up again, I was really worried for him because I knew him and how he functioned. He once told me that if anything happened to any of those children, he was definitely not going to take it breathing.

I sat in the car watching him, listening to the phone conversation, my mind narrowing in on his mind and the things he was capable of doing at times like this until he looked at me and then at the sky, and then at the pictures of the twins, “why is God always punishing me” he asked, not really focusing on me. “Why am I always standing on the edge of doom, Emmy?”

I pulled him by the shoulder to face me.“And who told you that God is so idle as to wake up every day, looking for you to punish unnecessarily?” I tried to hold his face, even though my fingers were stained with grease. His eyes were squinting as if he was peering into a dangerous alley way. The same way he looked at the doctor on the night he was told that his father was dead. A dead cold stare. I knew his mind had wondered into the dark sides of things. And so, I screamed at him, “Why do you always assume the worst, Obi?” I tried to jerk his shoulders. But, he was not moved. He merely looked at me with surprise in his eyes. “But, he is going to die, Nna, you know he is going to leave me. Do not try to make it better for me,” he sighed.

“Even though you are the doctor here who should know more than me, who should encourage?” I tried to make him understand that he had a duty to hold himself together. Even though I knew that the events of a few weeks ago had already broken him into tiny bits.

“But I am human before I am a doctor and doctors are the most broken at times.” He wiped his eyes using his elbow. And then shook his head, “If only they have paid me for the job I have done. If only.” His tears seemed to have gotten a renewed vigor. I felt so much for him. I wished I could have been able to solve the problem right there and then but, for some issues beyond my control, I couldn’t. I reached for his hands.  “But, it is not your fault, bro. it is not your own doing that you are too broke, it is not our fault that our country takes everything away from us.” I consoled.

                                                                 

Thing is that since he started working as a resident doctor in the federal teaching hospital, he had not been paid a kobo, and it had been almost eight months. According to him, they were only going to be paid after three months when they must have been captured by IPPIS; the CMD told them so when they were given orientation. They had taken it as one of those things that happened in chaotic country like Nigeria. Until four months flew by and nothing came in the form of salaries.

They started asking questions. From the finance office, to the office of the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, to the Director of Administration and finally, the office of the Chief Medical Director. They were told the same thing: “Go home if you are tired of surviving without pay, and stop disturbing.”

They tried every other avenue possible to get an audience but, were completely shut down with threats of sack and then, the final energy sapping news that they were only going to be considered for payment at the end pandemic, even if it lasted for ten years. And all through the time, we the friends, have been trying to help him solve issues. We got his car repaired and he started using it for evening taxi services until, it broke down again just as the lockdown was coming and everything stopped abruptly. Add that to the fact that his mother’s recent stroke had taken away whatever reserves I had to help him now.



I got a call from a customer and I wanted to run but a look at my friend convinced me to stay back. He was still holding the phone and his wife was still crying on the other side of the line. He was crying too. I moved to him and took the phone from him. I asked his wife to stop crying, to take the baby to the hospital and let the doctor speak with me, that everything was going to be alright. I told her not to be ashamed to beg, that there’s no shame in begging because it’s not her husband’s fault that the government was wicked and inconsiderate. I made her understand that the begging would buy us time, until Obi and I were able to smuggle ourselves through the lockdown to come take care of the baby. “Speed is vital,” I consoled.

“Thanks, Emmy. I’ll go immediately,” she assured. I could hear her sniffing and breathing better. And that made me happy. I was happy that she was beginning to pull herself together. Now, I had to get Obinna together for our trip.
“Guy, get up,” I pulled him up. “Let’s go and get things together.” It was late afternoon and the sky was clear blue. The sun blazed over from the sky as if in a duel with the living things down below, as if it was on a mission to burn down the earth. I had been longing for rain but now, I loved the sunshine. It gave me hope that before night fall we could drive through the dirt roads and forests that would take us to Enugu. I loved the daylight; I believed it would help take away the depression that had started clouding Obi’s eyes.


We were going to leave by 3pm and so, I had to get my car ready since Obi’s own was no longer good and since he couldn’t afford to repair it. I was checking the hydraulics when he came down from the lodge. It hadn’t taken him time at all to get ready. Or so I thought until I looked up from the open bonnet to see him carrying his smaller back pack, his water bottle and food flask, a bag of Garri and his bottle of sugar and milk. I was as shocked as I was amused. I even began laughing and pointing at him asked, “Why are you carrying Garri and sugar eh? Do you think we’re traveling to Sambisa forest?” I expected him to start laughing but he didn’t.
I desperately wanted him to laugh and reduce his soaring worry and anxiety about Junior but I was disappointed because, when I tried to move closer to him, to relieve him of some of the bags that were looking like they were going to overwhelm him, he moved back, motioning me to move away from him. It was so strange. Just like the clouds that had suddenly stopped shinning blue and now having the color of an old exhaust fumes, and the wind which had just started blowing furiously. “Stay away,” he commanded through his nose mask. Stay away because I think I have been exposed to the virus.”

I quickly moved back. Back into my car and closed the door. My hands trembled. My heart beat so fast. My spirit flew away from my body and within a few minutes, my life flashed before me. From birth until now, now that I was finally seeing a little success in my business, now that I was finally about getting married to my fiancée, Ada. I began to pray. To call on the gods, on Amokoshua, on Jesus and mother marry.


I watched the sky through the rear view. I saw Obinna making motions, asking me to give him his phone. He wanted to call his wife. But, I refused. I didn’t want him to call her and add to her misery and anxiety. I waved at him to go away, to the waiting ambulance from the teaching hospital. I would join him soon because I had become one of them. A contact. The hazmats suits of the health officers scared me.

***

We got to the isolation center, a hastily built temporal structure at the outskirts of the city, to know about the index case. We saw him. A fat politician who was being said now, to have recently returned from Italy. Happened that he had been attended to by Obinna and his unit a few hours ago, before he received the first call from his wife and took permission to go home. When I asked Obinna why he and his colleagues weren’t protected before seeing the patient he told me that they didn’t have any protective equipment, that they only used homemade nose masks and gloves, that the hospital management had forced them to attend to the man because he was a politician and you know the politicians and their powers which could make or mar the CMD’s career. He said that the patient had lied to everyone about his travel history. He was emotional as he spoke and spoke and even crying, cursing, tears and spit pouring freely from his head until his senior colleague, a lady consultant, held him in a tight embrace and asked him to stop crying. Yet, he cried until the heavy rain started falling.

***

When in the middle of the night I finally called his wife, surprised that she hadn’t dialed him since the late afternoon when we last spoke, she sounded totally blank and indifferent. She calmly told me that Junior was dead and that she would soon bury him in the backyard; that I should tell her husband to stop worrying, that all their pains would soon go away.

***

It’s now mid night and most of us in the isolation center are asleep. Except for Obinna and I. He is writing something in his diary. I look at him and even though I feel the urge to break the news to him, I somehow know that he already knows. He has a connection with his child that is beyond imagination. I walk up to him and hold his shoulder. He is writing in a very fanciful hand writing, unlike the intelligible things he often wrote for me in the name of prescription. He is calm too. So calm that I begin to worry for I know my friend. Especially when I read what he is writing in his journal.

You have to know about Dr Obinna. You need to know about the doctor who has just taken his own life. At least, let us remember him; that at least, he tried. That his country killed him.....