Waves Aligning

by Adaora O

  Sitting in the bus to Koki town, a small smile stole across Ama’s thoughtful countenance. They were going to be rich and Dede did not even know it. I will shock him with my ability to make things happen, Ama thought, as her chest expanded with the plans she held within.

  6

  Chinny stepped out of Fore-Trust Bank with the bounce of a brand-new basketball, her trepidation long forgotten. Besides the steady climb in school fees, the number of primary six pupils unable to pass the secondary school entrance examinations also did not do much to help the crash in Chinny’s school transport business. Grateful for the fall-back plan she had in her crisp beef cubes business, she reached into her bag for a pack of her scrumptious product. Chewing on her beef as she scanned for an available tricycle, Chinny grew nostalgic as she recalled giving out her cart to Abbas the goods transporter at the market. He moved goods in and out of the town market for traders. So, he promised to remit a fixed fee of 60 Naira daily for six days in a week to her, irrespective of how much he made. When Abbas realised that Chinny intended to strip the cart of its famous duvet, he begged her to forfeit the bell and ribbons since they would provide more visibility for his business.

  The tricycle across the street filled up as soon as it slowed down and Chinny wondered where all the passengers had appeared from. More conscious of the dull ache in her stomach, which harped on the need to eat something besides her beef bites, she began walking towards a show glass filled with crust buns and bumped smack into a beggar girl standing by the sidewalk. Disarmed by the raw beauty of the little girl, not older than eleven years, Chinny wondered why someone with no obvious impairment would settle for street begging. Refusing to let her be, the beggar girl followed and called out to Chinny for alms. She went on about her two-day old starvation, and how Chinny’s handout would be her life saver. Somewhat amused yet impressed by the beggar’s creative persistence, Chinny shoved aside whatever concept she had about healthy beggars and gave her a N10 bill.

  The beggar girl hesitated, then snatched and shoved the bill into the bag attached to her waist. Muttering, she turned to the next victim of her harassment. Wide-eyed with surprise, Chinny, who had begun to walk away, to place herself in an advantageous position for the next tricycle that would show up, walked back and in a voice a notch lower than her usual tone addressed the beggar, “Young lady, I have no clue about who you are, your story or what your expectations from life are, but I know two things. First, nobody owes you and is under any obligation to offer any assistance to you. Secondly, those who have risen above their circumstances are the ones known to have cultivated and maintained a grateful attitude for the little mercies that came their way – mercies as seemingly insignificant as breath.” Saucer-eyed, the beggar stared as Chinny stalked off in time for another tricycle that had just pulled up, all the while wondering at the audacity of people with the incredible propensity to trample on the weightier things in life while bemoaning the lack of trivialities. She let out a long yawn and tried to remember if she needed to buy any cooking condiments before she got home. She had yam pottage to prepare for lunch and thinking about it made her mouth water in anticipation.

  *

  The three new carts that stood under the almond tree in front of the house drew a smile from Chinny as she walked towards the door. A lip-smacking happy Abbas, obviously pleased with the prospect of Chinny relinquishing ownership of the truck to him after twelve months, introduced his three friends to her. They also wanted to start the goods transport business in other market locations and found her arrangement enticing. Chinny took them up on their offer and contacted her truck constructor – her father – to build three more trucks. This, in addition to her flourishing beef business, made sure Chinny’s bank account received impressive deposits in preparation for school. She now had a major customer who bought a hundred sachets of beef bites every week for the snack shop at the college of education in a neighbouring town. Every so often, Chinny worked overnight on Saturdays to make packs ready for pick up on Sunday.

  Dede did not see his daughter as she walked in and almost immediately out of the compound. She decided to go back a few blocks to ask Madam Cynthia, one of the caterers who outsourced the meat preparation bit of their food catering deals to her, for the number of chickens to expect from Mrs Badmus. Thankfully, Ama often threw her legs and arms into ensuring the timely delivery of her daughter’s meat deals. These days, Chinny’s bank account grew in giant leaps, and this thought filled her mind as she passed by, unaware of Mr Clarke sitting comfortably in his car, under the baking sun.

  Mr Clarke sat parked a few metres away, poring over a newspaper and Dede looked out of his bedroom window for the fifth time, pondering on why his neighbour chose to sit in his car under the menacing heat, rather than the comfort of his plush sitting room to satisfy his thirst for information. At twenty minutes past twelve, a car pulled up beside Mr Clarke and a young man in blue denim and a smart shirt turned upwards at the cuffs came out and began talking with him. Dede could see that they were looking at some papers. Tired of straining his eyes and neck over people he could not hear, he went to the kitchen to help himself to a glass of water. He considered going out for a chat with Mr Clarke afterwards if he was still outside. Dede had put in a bid to supply brick casting machines at the construction company where Mr Clarke worked and wanted to find out if he should still set his hopes on winning the bid.

  As he made to cover the bottle of water, the full glass of water now sitting on the counter slid off and landed on the ground with a crash. In a frenzy, Dede swept up the glass particles and with a napkin he snatched from the cabinet handle, mopped the floor dry. He shook the napkin vigorously to rid it of all the glass particles and started to wring it out but winced in pain. A glass splinter buried in the napkin had lodged in his palm where it joined to his wrist. Taking out the splinter with a safety pin proved to be trickier than Dede anticipated. For, as he attempted to make a horizontal bypass under the splinter in his palm, the pin made an unintended detour, tearing into his wrist. Judging by the volume of blood running off Dede’s palm, he knew the cut was bad. He put the napkin aside and, using another kitchen napkin, applied pressure to the cut. The once-blue cloth fast became damp and red with his blood and the entire arm now throbbed with excruciating pain.

  Out of the corner of his eye as he walked back to his bedroom to lay his head, Dede saw that Mr Clarke still lingered outside, but with someone entirely different. With the pain in his arm as his current source of worry, Mr Clarke, his curious behaviour and strange visitors were the last things on Dede’s mind. Giving in to the alluring comfort of sleep, he closed his eyes. Chinny will bring me a glass of water when she returns, was Dede’s last conscious thought.

  Chinny let herself in through the kitchen door. Deciding not to bother her father’s nap, she went about preparing lunch like a mouse. As she cooked, she thought about the man snoring in the room and her heart warmed. She knew her father’s back ached from bending over backwards to support the home but did not know that for each time a breakthrough prospect fell through his fingers, he died a little. Chinny did not know that after coming to the disappointing conclusion that his son did not have any interest in academic pursuits, he secretly regretted staking Dubem’s education against hers. Dede did not want to imagine how bad Dubem’s actual results were since even after severe mutilation, they still ended up so poor when he sent them home. Why Oliseh appeared happy to keep a total failure like Dubem in his house eluded Dede’s logical mind.

  Lunch preparation lasted till twenty minutes before 3 pm. Chinny knocked on Dede’s bedroom door and when she did not get any response, let herself in to see her father shivering under the covers. She tapped him and when he did not move, tried to move him over onto his back to get a better look at him. Only then did she step on something sticky. Chinny went into panic mode when she realised the stickiness was blood from her father. She thought he had slashed his wrist but on closer observat
ion, decided differently and began to shake him for response. Dede did not move, and the blood continued to trickle. The blood refused to clot, and this worried Chinny as she started to run out of the room. Almost immediately, she changed her mind and decided to place a call using her phone but one look at her father’s immobile body made her change her mind again.

  A few home remedies from a first-aid handbook which could speed up blood clotting flashed in Chinny’s head and she dashed to the kitchen to return with a few items – tea bags, a block of alum salt and some black powdery substance. She sprinkled some water on the three tea bags she held and after undoing the now blood-soaked napkin from her father’s hand, strained some of the liquid from the tea bags onto the wound. She waited for a heartbeat, wiped the wound surface with the napkin and saw the blood still flowed, but in less violent spurts. She dipped a small block of alum into water and placed it on the cut. While she waited, she touched her father’s forehead and winced at his fever. Holding the alum in place with the bloodied napkin, she ran to the kitchen and came back with ice in a bowl of tap water. She grabbed her mother’s wrapper from under the pillow, dipped it in the bowl of iced water and placed a cold compress on her father’s head, neck and chest. Chinny gave a sigh of relief when she checked the cut again to see that the bleeding had almost ceased. She opened all three of the drawers beside the bed before spotting the object of her search. Taking a cup from the table, Chinny dissolved six tablets of the painkiller and without thinking, prised her father’s mouth open by inserting an ink marker between his upper and lower incisors. She poured the dissolved medicine into his mouth, but he remained as still as ice. So, even though the blood no longer ran, Chinny braced herself and poured her last blood clotting aid – ground black pepper – on her father’s wound. Dede winced and as he did, gulped for air. Chinny took out the marker and down went the medicine.

  Chinny told her now-conscious but weak father that they had to go to the medical centre for proper care and went outside to flag a tricycle for the trip to the centre. Perplexed after three failed attempts at getting a tricycle driver to come into the house to move her father, Chinny went in to check on Dede to find that not only had the fever returned with a vengeance, he was also no longer responsive. She dabbed him with some iced water and ran out in confusion to seek for any kind of help. When Chinny found nobody in sight, she took out her phone and called Ama.

  “Nne’m, father is injured. I have tried my best, but nobody is willing to help me. Nne, nobody wants to help me. I cannot lift him alone. Father is not talking, his body… his body is limp. I do not…” By this time, Chinny had her left hand on her head. Tears gushed down her face as she wailed loudly, uncontrollably and without shame. Unable to get in any more words through her daughter’s outburst, Ama turned hysterical at the other end of the line. In the midst of the communication chaos, an oncoming car missed Chinny by whiskers. The driver screeched to a halt and jumped out looking flustered. A second man sat back in the passenger’s seat.

  “Do you have a death wish?” the driver bawled. Chinny cleaned her face with the back of her hands.

  She did not know the driver, but began in a rushed voice, “Please sir, please sir… help me… my father… he is seriously injured. I cannot carry him alone. Please sir can you help me to the hospi—” She took two steps back when she recognised the still-seated passenger. It was Mr Peters.

  The driver, a younger man, asked pointing towards the house, “Is that your house?” Chinny hesitated for a heartbeat. Two fresh beads of tears slid down her face to her throat as she bobbed her head. He followed her into the house and in no time, they were on their way to the medical centre.

  It did not take too long to locate a vein and set a drip line on Dede’s good arm. A total of five injections were pumped into the pack of saline solution hanging on the stand beside his bed. The fluid dripped soundlessly from the pack, through the transparent tube and into his vein. Chinny wondered how long it would take the drip pack to become empty. The tightness around her chest began to ease out since her father lay stable and now snored lightly as he rested. The stranger took complete control of the situation, insisting that Dede be kept in a private room. He paid the registration fees and after making his bank details available, asked the billing unit to charge whatever bill was incurred to his account. Chinny was done filling in the required documents at the registration desk and went to the reception area to find the stranger and Mr Peters.

  That Mr Peters neither empathised nor made any suggestions the entire time did not elude Chinny’s perceptive mind. She wondered how Mr Stranger knew this vile man and looking pointedly at the younger man, gushed her gratitude. Chinny’s thankfulness radiated from her eyes as she told Mr Stranger that her father’s temperature now read within the normal range and that he lay stable and sound asleep. But before he could respond, she continued, “Please sir, who are you? I mean what is your name and how much do I owe you?” Not one to be taken by surprise, Chinny had already begun thinking of possible ways to pay back if the bill became too much for her bank account to handle. She thought about services he may need; top of the list were house cleaning and laundry. She hoped he did not live too far away or already have someone who offered those services. Hopefully, whatever salary he paid for her services would be sufficient to offset her debt in no time.

  Smiling genially, Mr Stranger responded. “Do not bother about the bill yet. I am Kenneth,” and pointing to the man whose head now hung in an awkward angle, he finished, “and this is my father, Mr Nchedo Peters.” The upward curve of the smile of gratitude that had begun to form again around Chinny’s mouth dipped without warning. On cue, Chinny’s phone began to ring. It was her mother.

  “Nne, we are at the medical centre.” There was a pause and she continued, “Yes, the one by the expressway, close to the water corporation. Yes, Mother. Okay. See you. Bye” She looked at Kenneth, the smile gone from her eyes and thanked him for his help but repeated, “How much do I owe you sir… for the registration and please do not worry, we will pay the bill. My mother will be here shortly.” She made a mental note to transfer her father to the general ward the instant her mother arrived.

  Kenneth noticed Chinny recoiled when he introduced himself and was surprised at her sudden mood swing. He glanced at his father and back at Chinny and in a measured voice said, “You have not told me your name… and wha—”

  “My name is Chinetalum Ona,” Chinny blurted. She was eternally grateful to Kenneth for coming to her rescue when he did but the thought of him being remotely connected to the man in the seat next to him proved to be a very rough morsel to swallow.

  The air between them could almost be touched. “Ehm,” Mr Peters stuttered, “I err… happen to be friends with err… Chinny’s father.”

  “Who is Chinny?” Kenneth asked him, visibly piqued.

  “That would be me. My friends and family call me Chinny for short and no, that man is no friend. He asked my father to trade me for a loan that would help offset the mortgage on our house. That is our relationship with him.” Chinny’s voice had risen an octave higher and sounded like it belonged to someone at least twenty years older. Kenneth rolled the information he had just heard around in his head and was mortified when the meaning of Chinny’s words slapped him hard across the face. He turned towards Chinny.

  “I did not know who you were when I almost ran into you and decided to help you. Please accept my offer to help and do not judge me by my father’s gross conduct. I hope your father gets well soon.” He did not wait for her response and walked out of the medical centre without as much as a glance backwards. Mr Peters started to say something to his son but neither halting nor looking in his direction, Kenneth stopped him with a raised hand. Chinny looked on as the two men walked out. She went back to peek at her father and by the time she came back to the reception area for some air and TV, she saw her mother talking to the nurse.

  “Nne!!!” Chinny s
quealed, relieved.

  Ama hugged her daughter. She was so worried and began in a rushed and nervous voice, “When I got home and did not see you there, I did not know what to think. I had called you up to four times before the call connected. These networks are so poor here. Where is he?” Walking towards the room, Chinny collected the carry-on bag from her mother as they made their way to Dede’s room. She narrated the events of the day to her mother who was both grateful and angered that her daughter had to sit in the same space as the one person they all despised the most. Ama told Chinny that on her way into the medical centre, she ran into Mr Peters who, with the young man he seemed to be having an argument with, attempted to get her attention. Needless to say, the words she threw at them were ones she could not bring herself to repeat to her daughter.

  Once in the room, Chinny examined the contents of the bag with visible appreciation. When Ama heard that they were now at the medical centre, her anxiety lifted somewhat, so she had packed up the yam pottage that should have been lunch and some essentials to take with her to the centre. Dede’s eyes fluttered open. He still looked weak but managed a smile. He soon became agitated as his eyes darted around the room. Ama understood at once and offered, “Dee, you passed out. Your cut was deep, and you bled so much for too long. Maybe you tore a vein. It is a good thing you did not need a transfusion.” Just then, a doctor came in. Chinny did not recognise this doctor. The first doctor who attended to them earlier was tall and light in complexion, but the doctor who now busied himself with examining her father’s eyes and taking notes was dark-skinned and of an average height. She could not help but notice his striking good looks too. He had a set of perfectly white teeth. Is that why he smiles often? Chinny wondered.