Waves Aligning

by Adaora O

  At about 5:45 pm, Chief Utah breezed into the room. He came as soon as he learnt from the hospital when he called as usual to find out how Chinny fared. Due to leave for Abuja on a flight at 7:10 pm and Nigeria at 10:30 pm, he had a couple of minutes to spare at the hospital. His smile almost ripped his face as he chided Chinny for holding the whole country to ransom.

  “It feels good to be famous,” responded a now-sated Chinny with a giggle. Amidst casual chatter, Chinny greedily gobbled the mildly spiced fish pepper soup from the hospital kitchen.

  Chief Utah had to go, but was interrupted from taking his leave when the door flung open and Dubem, Ejiofor and Adaiba ran in squealing. A happy Ama cautioned them to lower their voices but the hospital staff she bothered about did not appear to mind one bit. Another ten minutes encroached on Chief Utah’s already choked time, so he turned to leave, promising to return in a few days. Dede started to thank him for all his support and care, but Chief Utah waved it off, saying they had done more for him than they could imagine. At the door, he told them that he had left the keys to the chalet in the care of Rufus his security guard, and that they were free to move in as soon as Chinny was discharged. Without another word, he left in a hurry for the airport. Chinny looked from her father to her mother, then to Dubem before asking why Chief Utah offered them his house.

  “What is wrong with our own house?” she asked no one in particular.

  Deciding that if there was ever going to be the feared event of a relapse, the hospital was the best place to have one, Dede told his daughter that Chief Utah magnanimously offered to accommodate them for a while because they had a fire incident in the house. Everyone exhaled when in a calm voice she asked what started the fire and how much of the house it destroyed. Rushed chorused explanations of an electrical fault and repairable damage rolled over one another. Chinny seemed to take the news well because she only shook her head in resignation and finished her soup. It had been one exhausting ordeal for her, and she was drained of energy – even for worry.

  No tantrum, appeal or coercion from Chinny could change the doctor’s decision to observe her till the next day at the very least. So, she settled back to endure her hospital bed for at least one more night. Somewhere within her, though crushed at the uncertainty the fire caused, the prospect of camping out in one of Chief Utah’s three guest chalets was something to look forward to. The evening grey fast turned to the night’s black so Kika, Violet, Ejiofor, Dubem and Adaiba got up to begin their journey home. But Dede asked his son to accompany him to the villa. If his family received shelter on a gold platter, he thought it responsible to at least take a look beforehand and make it warm for them on their arrival. So, Ama and Chinny were left by themselves but this time, the light in Ama’s eyes filled the room as she called out after her husband, “Okay, don't be long!”

  *

  A dizzy spell hit Chinny when she stepped out to board the car kindly provided by the hospital and she leaned into the hook of her father’s right arm. For the first time, she did not shake her head in resignation at the sight and smell of spilling refuse bins mixed with water and dust. Both of which featured in the plethora of reasons for her mounting dissatisfaction with living in any country without snow and people who spoke through their noses – Uncle Kika’s colourful description of the Caucasian missionaries who almost succeeded in convincing his father to send him to school. Deliberate in her action, she drew a lungful of the humid air outside, appreciating the puddle-filled potholes of varying dimensions, splashed through without a care by tricycles, bikes and cars as they sped along the strip of untarred road beside the hospital. Thinking, You never know what you have until you lose it, her face broke into a guilty smile. Everything seemed surreal to the Onas as they got into the vehicle and waved at Safe Trust Hospital’s chief medical director and staff. In Chinny’s opinion, this treatment, fit for only royals, and all the financial assistance and goodwill they received during their stay in the hospital, could not for one minute be put down to luck. Certain that a superior force chose them as a show screen, she settled in her seat and closed her eyes to enjoy the ride to her new home… temporary or not.

  Rufus walked on cloud puffs as he ushered the Onas into their new home. It was bigger and sat further from the gate than the chalet where Chinny had met with Chief Utah. Though grateful that Dede and Dubem did all the cleaning required for a long-abandoned house, Ama noticed the absence of a few items and drafted a conservative list of essentials, from pots, matchsticks and spoons to food stuff, drinkable water and spices. Shortly after they settled in, Dede put on his shoes again. Duty called; he had some shopping to do.

  At 8:15 am, the sun stood high in striking splendour, but the Onas sunk deeper in absolute slumber. Who would not after spending so long on hard chairs and a cramped hospital bed? Besides their dinner of fried yams, plantains and fish which Dede bought from a well-sought-after food vendor, the cool air from the air-conditioning unit and the king-sized beds in every room made certain their slumber dug even deeper.

  It was a taste of heaven for Ama as her back hit a bed that still had room even after fully stretching her arms. Her eyes slid open, but she refused to give up the softness that still caressed her back. “Hmm! This luxury will need some getting used to,” she sighed with a self-indulgent smile. The doorbell chimed and Ama jumped. Running with the speed of greased lightning, she unlocked the door to see a man in a white baker’s cap, holding out a wicker basket.

  With a huge smile, his cheerful voice rang, “Good morning, madam. Breakfast from Chief Utah. He thought it would be too early for you to have settled in to cook anything and left orders to give you a soft landing. I am so sorry, his order came in very late last night so I could not make anything available for your dinner.” Ama did a poor job at concealing her enthusiasm as she gushed her gratitude. Beyond exhausted, Ama had given breakfast not even one fleeting thought.

  The need for lunch was successfully given a rear seat after the delicious breakfast. None of the warm croissants, baked beans, perfectly scrambled eggs, steamed green peas, milk and sugar-laced oats or fruit salad stood a chance as they received the full venom of the Onas’ exhaustion and stark excitement. Listening to their animated chatter, it was difficult to associate them with the level of pain, uncertainty and utter hopelessness they found themselves grappling with for a stretched number of years.

  Dubem cleared the dining table and practically ran his mother off when she attempted to do the dishes. Besides the occasional anxious glances cast Chinny’s way, fearing she would scream in pain and slip back into unconsciousness, the chalet exuded relaxed warmth. But Chinny neither screamed out in pain nor slipped back into coma. She just missed her phone and so did not chat much.

  Near frustrated, Dubem stood for almost ten minutes, trying to turn on the television set. The remote control sent out signals when he tapped the power button – as shown by the red light on it – but the TV did not come on. The power button on the TV set did not do much to help either. More annoying was that nobody could locate the power cable or switch. Ama thought the set may be running on batteries, but Dede disagreed. He thought it would not make any economic sense to manufacture such television sets.

  “Moreover, the power-providing companies would be greatly disturbed at the prospect of becoming redundant and would fight the manufacturers or distributors of such a product with the ferocity of a wounded lion,” he argued. Only at the point of frustration and near-resignation did Dubem look behind the television to find the power cable carefully knotted and plugged into a socket discreetly screwed high on the wall behind the TV. Letting out a sigh, he clicked the switch and turned it on using the remote control. Halfway into the morning breakfast show, Ama joked about how Chinny’s birthday stole past them on Thursday and how today, Easter Sunday almost did the same! They agreed that all church services would have ended and wondered if Chief Utah went for Easter service. Did he belong to any church denomination
or community? Was he a Christian? It dawned on the Onas that they knew next to nothing about their kind-hearted host.

  Chinny needed to rest and went into her room for a siesta. Yes, her room. The guest chalet had four bedrooms with individual toilets and bathrooms. The sitting room was big and well laid out with an impressive dining area opening into an equally large kitchen area.

  Not long after Chinny’s head touched the pillow, there was a knock, a pause and then the bell chimed. It was Adaiba and Ejiofor. Violet sent a cooler of white rice with palm fruit sauce and goat meat for lunch. She and Kika planned to visit later in the evening. Ejiofor took a seat while Adaiba asked to be pointed to Chinny’s room. She skipped off to her cousin before Ama’s warning to keep her animated self in check reached her ears.

  Adaiba whistled, snapping her thumb and middle fingers in open-mouthed appreciation of the sheer luxury around her. “Chi, so this man just gave you guys this house… for free?” Chinny quickly corrected her cousin. She told her that the house only served as a place to ‘camp out’, pending when they pulled themselves back up. Adaiba’s excitement suffered no dampening. She simply thought they were in paradise and secretly blessed the ill fate that brought them this good luck. “Hei! From no home to mini palace… from no home to mini palace! From no home to mini palace…” Chinny found it impossible to stop herself from laughing at her cousin’s chant.

  When Adaiba brought herself back on planet Earth, she started in a tentative whisper, “Chi, err… Ejiofor is here oo.” At Chinny’s raised eyebrows, she added that he was in the sitting room but that his parents and sister stayed back in their car a few metres away from the villa. Immediately heading for the sitting room, Chinny asked why they refused to come into the house. Adaiba told her it could very well be an uncertainty of the reception awaiting them, given the now non-existent friendship between the two families. Chinny held her friend in a bear hug and she, together with Ama, Adaiba and Dubem, went out to usher the Clarkes into the house. Try as the Onas did to hold on to their hurt, the realisation that all their south-bound journeys found a way to turn northwards expanded their hearts, making it impossible to stay bitter at the Clarkes.

  Chiaka came along with a cooler of spaghetti and fried chicken, while Mr Clarke carried a cool box, filled with bottles of soda and packs of juice. He did not speak, save for his muffled and tentative “Good afternoon and Happy Easter” to Ama and Dede. Ama suspected he regretted what he did and tried to ease him into their happy ambience, but it did not help much that Dede did not feel at all chatty.

  While everybody other than Dede and Mr Clarke chatted away, it struck Chinny that her birthday and Easter Sunday were not the only dates to elude them. So she asked, “How about the GCE interview? Did it hold?” Adaiba stuttered for a bit before bracing for the worst. She recounted how the several appeals she, Dubem and Ejiofor made to the officials for the interview to be postponed or at least for Chinny to be given a separate date fell on rocky ground. Chinny’s eyes lit up when Ejiofor mentioned the rally but dimmed when Dubem told her that when it mattered the most, the few intending participants pulled out. In the end, only Dubem, Adaiba, Ejiofor and two others participated in the rally with Adaiba being the only one with an interview at stake. To lighten the fast-dipping mood, Ama and Zara, Ejiofor’s sister, began serving the rice, spaghetti and drinks. It was almost too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but they enjoyed the meal regardless. By the end of the day, the Onas had more food than they needed since added to all the food they received from Violet and Chiaka, Chief Utah’s standing order at his kitchen remained valid. Thankfully, the huge refrigerator in the kitchen more than matched the task. In spite of all the madness, this Easter Sunday was one of the best the Onas had experienced in a very long time.

  16

  Five days in the villa and anyone would think Dubem had lived there since forever. He was the only one not taking a siesta – a battle Ama had long conceded for her sanity’s sake. Her son’s aversion to sleeping in the day defied every reason. This is the life, Dubem thought as he plugged his phone to charge in a corner. Dede had retrieved their SIM cards and bought cheap and cheery but functional phones for everybody. He plopped down on the longest sofa in the living room to enjoy a match between Barcelona FC and Arsenal.

  Grumbling, Dubem tore his eyes away from the football match and hurried to the door to find Rufus grinning as usual. “Where is small Miss?” he asked. When Dubem told him that his sister was having a nap, he went on, “No problem, tell am Chief don come back! E just come back now now!” Promising to inform Chinny of Chief Utah’s return as soon as she woke up, Dubem smiled at the guard’s enthusiasm about his job, but did not wonder why, since his employment conditions told the reasons out loud.

  At about seven forty-five in the evening, Dede stood at the entrance to the main building, thirty-five feet away from their chalet. He wanted to know if he could speak with the chief. The steward led him into the anteroom and a while later, Chief Utah asked Dede to join him in the sitting room.

  Once inside, Dede almost whistled at the luxury before him, but clutched onto his composure. Although not cluttered with furniture, the seemingly endless space of a sitting room had in its centre a rug piece, wide enough to accommodate eight able-bodied men, the depth of which could not be less than two inches. Dede longed to touch the black fur of the rug. The chief’s hair, wet from a shower, glistened under the soft spotlights in the higher than usual POP ceiling as he offered Dede a seat and asked if they had been comfortable so far.

  “We could not wish for anything better, even if we tried,” said Dede as he thanked him and sat, holding out a cheque with the hospital bill refund. “Here is the refund from the hospital sir… we cannot…” But Chief Utah stopped Dede. He wanted nothing to do with the refund.

  “Your daughter… Errr, Chinny rescued me. Before I met her, I was a husk of a man, aloof in my cocoon. My chance encounter with her pulled away the shutters over my eyes. For as long as forever, I drowned myself in my pain, not having any desire to see beyond myself. Yes, I did a sprinkle of good works, attempting to fill my void, but nothing I did emerged from selflessness. When I met your daughter, everything changed. Meeting her was heaven’s response to my silent call.” Chief Utah stopped for a moment and went on. “Your child handed me a second chance at life after the death of my wife. And please, it is light years away from what you think. I gather you have a budding career and will therefore not fiddle with your ego. Please tell your wife to submit a proposal for anything she wants to get busy with and I will make it happen.”

  Dede’s fingers tapped on the arm of the deep-grey leather seat he sat in, distracted for a moment by its rich oak trimming and the low hanging crystal chandeliers, one each in the sitting room and dining area. The curtains travelled from the ceiling all the way down to the black-splotched grey marble floor. Each copiously garnered curtain set comprised a rich grey piece between two bright white pieces. Bringing himself back to the present, Dede began to shake his head, muttering his refusal of any more kindness from Chief Utah who smiled with that self-satisfaction inexorably associated with the rich and said, “You have no idea, do you Mr Ona? I am repulsively rich and before now, it would have meant absolutely nothing to me whether you accepted my offer or not. But as it stands, I owe you and your family for a lifetime and back. And I hate to be a debtor.” He paused for air and resumed talking. “Please, this is your home for as long as you want. Do not hold back from accepting my hand because, it is only a reciprocation of the help your child inadvertently brought my way. You may wonder at the improbability of being able to do anything for someone who seemingly lacks nothing. But one day soon, I will tell you my story.”

  Unable to grasp the real reason behind Chief Utah’s intensity, Dede managed to convey his gratitude to him in not many words. He had an almost irrepressible urge to fling his arms around his host, but not wanting his masculinity to come under a cloud, he shook him w
ith both hands instead. Long after Dede left, Chief Utah sank further in his chair, with the smile of a sated infant, the warmth, slow in its spread from his heart through his entire being.

  *

  The date for the formal handing over of the rescued girls had just been announced. Everyone was talking animatedly about the evening news and the details of Dede’s chat with Chief Utah when Chinny’s phone rang. Ejiofor’s voice reverberated with excitement. He wanted to know if she had listened to the evening news. In his opinion, the handover ceremony was fast becoming an event everybody would want to attend but Chinny expressed her indifference. While everyone chatted away in the chalet, Chief Utah received a call and an accompanying electronic mail from the governor’s office, inviting him to the handover ceremony, slated to be held in exactly one week’s time. He graciously accepted the invite and began to consider a plausible excuse not to attend, when an adjoining mail asking him to prepare a five-minute speech hit his mailbox. He realised the futility in planning to evade the ceremony.

  The next morning, Adaiba called to ask if Chinny had heard about the handover and proudly informed her that a few friends in different dance troops told her they would be making presentations at the ceremony and were now having rehearsals. With an all-important tone, Adaiba informed her cousin that someone whispered something about the attendance of not only the president of Nigeria, but the president of the Dominican Republic. “Famous musicians will perform live. And I also learnt there will be so much to eat and drink,” she said.