The lights inside were a misty fog that spread through the room, illuminating stools and tables streaked from wet rags and a scuffed, empty stage. A howling country song murmured through the room. Men sat hunched over the bar. One woman with an old, sour face and puckered lips was among them, sucking a murky drink through a straw.
After looking the woman over for a long time, Emeka leaned into Job, but his voice was loud and delighted. “Disgusting!”
They ordered whiskeys straight up, and the bartender brought them out in cloudy glasses packed with ice. Emeka picked up his glass, inspected the smudges along the rim, and shook his head. At the top of the cluster of ice cubes, a small fleck floated. Job was equally disgusted. If he were with anyone else in the world, he would ask the bartender to bring another glass.
They sipped silently. After a moment, Emeka spoke. “She tells me it was juju.” He smirked. “That’s why she has not had a son for all these years.”
Job smirked along with him. He didn’t believe in such a thing, the thought that a witch could put a hex on Gladys to bring her misfortune, let alone deny her a son. It was the kind of story his grandparents and generations before them had repeated to him as a small child, the kind of story his parents respectfully nodded at, then quietly chuckled over.
“Her sisters.” Emeka rolled his eyes. “They are sending an emissary to the village for a native doctor. Can you believe this nonsense? I have had to pay three thousand dollars to take care of this matter.” He looked gravely at Job, and Job could see in Emeka’s eyes that he really did believe it. “I have an enemy. Someone is jealous of me, my friend.”
“Come now.”
“It is true. I am a man with the fortune of marrying a beautiful, intelligent wife. I have six beautiful daughters, two at university. I own a palace. I have the top position at the university. I tell you, a jealous man is watching.”
“You don’t believe such nonsense,” Job said.
“Of course not,” Emeka snapped at him and crossed his arms on the bar. “Of course not.”
They ordered a second round. And then a third. By the time they had lost count, the men and the sole woman had turned away from the bar and faced the stage at the back of the room. A string of scantily clad women with knobby knees and bruised thighs stood on the stage in various poses. At twenty, they were destined for a cruel middle age. Emeka glowered. He called them ugly harlots, cows. He said, “See that one, and that one. Ashawo!” He waved dismissively at their stretch marks, at the downward dip of their nipples. “They already have children. What kind of mother dances naked? Shameless. Ah-ah! A-mer-eeka.” But his eyes did not leave them.
Job nodded in assent, his eyes shamefully dodging those of the women on the stage. He told Emeka about the phone calls, about Cheryl—“She has called three times, oh, begging me for my money”—but he left out the fact that he had given it to her.
Without his eyes leaving the stage, Emeka wagged his head. After a moment, he reconsidered. “Wait, wait, wait. Is this the woman who gave you a blow job so many years ago? This one?”
Job nodded carefully.
Emeka laughed. “You mean to tell me that this woman has used your name to pay her bills? And you have done nothing?”
Job thought it over. “It is a business arrangement.”
“You are being taken for a long ride, my friend.” He shook his head at Job. “What does she want?”
“Money. All the time, begging me for money. You see, I am the most successful man she knows. Of all her American friends, I am the only one who is capable to provide the investment income,” Job said. “But I have refused to hear her nonsense.”
“Americans are way-o. I would not be the fool in this business,” Emeka said. He clucked softly.
“I would not know this thief if it had not been for you.” Job’s voice rose. “You said it would be easy. You said, ‘Marry quick-quick, divorce quick-quick, and citizen.’”
“Job, my friend,” Emeka said, “I have known you since you were still suckling your mother’s breast from here in America.” He sighed. “Have I not taught you anything? You do not know how to make your voice heard.”
“What are you talking about?” Job shrugged. “I have washed my hands of this woman until I see a profit margin increase.”
“Then she wants to blow job you again. Is this the profit margin that you will be increasing?” Emeka laughed throatily. “Why are you complaining to me?” Emeka drunkenly swatted at Job. “Eh, why are you wasting my time?”
“Heh.” Job fumed. Why must he turn to Emeka for help when the man couldn’t even control his own home? Clearly it was Emeka’s fault about the baby. What kind of man forced his wife to work in that condition anyway? Ifi did not have to work, though Gladys did. Job thought about Ifi’s letter, about the palace she had described to her aunty: Ionic columns, crown molding, curtains of lace, a big-screen television. What did they need such nonsense for? None of it made sense to him. Lies. She had seen him leave for work each night. She must have known that he was not a lazy man. He had provided her with all the comforts a man could: a home, a comfortable bed, a fur coat, necklaces, and a designer dress. She had not suffered like Gladys. He turned to Emeka. “Gladys was still working, eh?” His voice rose in that warning note, the same note Emeka had used when he said Americans were way-o.
“Fuck you,” Emeka said. His mouth was full of spit, and his words salted the air with saliva. Then, almost guiltily, he straightened up, regained his composure, and turned to the bartender. “Drinks for everyone.”
The bartender lined up several of the stout, cloudy glasses on the bar and filled them all with ice and whiskey. Everyone nodded his or her thanks. One fellow patted Emeka on the back and called him “buddy.” Again, he was the hero. And once again, Job hated him for it. Why must everyone honor Emeka? Couldn’t they see that he was nothing more than a crook? He did not even come from a good family like Job.
The lone woman at the bar blew Emeka a kiss. She made her way over to them. Pale pink lipstick stained a row of yellowed teeth. Wrinkles lined her powdered face. “Listen, buddy,” she said, “I just want you to know, I appreciate your fellowship. So what do you do?” she asked.
Job answered for them. “He is an engineer and I am a doctor.”
She pulled out a card from her pocket and handed it to Emeka. Her name was Sheryl. Job laughed. He couldn’t help it. She was a boutique owner. She told Emeka to come by anytime. “Anytime at all.”
Emeka placed the card in his pocket without looking at the lady or the card.
Job gazed at Emeka. His eyes had begun to glaze over as he watched the gyrating strippers. Beads of sweat ran down their faces. The lipstick smudged. Dark raccoon makeup encircled the eyes of one of the strippers, and it matched the bruises on her bowed legs.
Job reached into his pocket for Ifi’s letter. He hadn’t yet decided what to do with it. He glanced at the envelope, but instead of Ifi’s careful longhand, he saw a typeface with Cheryl’s name and address. He shrank back in horror. Could he have accidentally posted Ifi’s letter with the bills for the day? For the first time, he wondered how many of these letters had made it to Aunty. And who else had seen them. It was not even what was contained in the letters that bothered him. Everyone had done it, he supposed. To some degree, they had all told their little lies. Uncomfortably he thought of his stethoscope and briefcase, and his nightly trips to the parking lot. But why must Ifi tell the little lies? Her life was uncomplicated, and when the baby arrived, it would be complete. Never would she have to endure the insults that he faced nightly—working long nights with little sleep, being chastised like a child by coworkers who had come from nothing, wiping feces from patients’ anuses. Never would she face these humiliations. He would make sure she lived the unsullied life of a big man’s wife if it killed him.
Job started to take the letter out of his pocket to show it to Emeka, to complain or to find a way to make Ifi, like Gladys, a woman dignified and content with li
fe. He wasn’t sure which. Maybe Emeka would have an answer for this, as he had an answer for everything, as Samuel had.
Before Samuel left for the war, there were long talks with Job at age seven, his chin resting in his palm as Samuel strutted back and forth in front of his bed, instructing him about his civic duty as an Igbo. Samuel was one of the first to go, a rascally nineteen-year-old with jagged teeth and too much confidence. While others were dodging conscription, he enlisted. He so heartily believed in the cause. All those secret meetings he went to; for their father, the idea of an Igbo secessionist state was merely hushed, angry whispers in living rooms. Even so, Job worried that his brother was mixing with troublesome people: tall men in khakis who patted his shoulder and allowed him sips from their beers during the one meeting he followed Samuel to.
Everyone was so foolish with pride when they saw Samuel in that uniform. They had even thrown him a big party before he left for military training, convinced it would be over in a matter of days. They were fooled, all of them. But most of all Samuel, whose body came back in a bruised wooden crate, damaged from its bumpy ride home in a street lorry.
Glaring at the dingy stage, Job’s memory set on the image of the battered crate, and he was filled with such a surge of simultaneous rage and remorse that he ordered bourbon and drank it so fast that it choked the words that were in danger of escaping him. Bourbon drowned the accusations in his heart—against Samuel, the one meant to be the doctor, meant for America; against Ifi and her malcontent.
After some time, the bartender slid the bill across the damp bar. While he half waited, half slept, Job and Emeka argued over who would pay the bill, until Job stumbled and told Emeka that his practice was growing larger and he didn’t need help from anyone to pay any of his bills. And his wife was just fine and happy with it. Emeka gave him a strange look, but allowed him to pay. Job paid with a MasterCard, signed the bill, crumpled it, and placed it in his pocket without looking. Still, no one surrounded Job gleefully to pat him on the back and call him “buddy,” and, as a result, he scowled as they made their way to the car.
It wasn’t until they were on their way down the long stretch of highway that Job realized that in the past, he had told Emeka and Gladys that he was not in private practice quite yet, that instead he worked for a regional hospital. It surprised Job that Emeka hadn’t caught his mistake. And then it pleased him. Emeka is the fool, he thought, and the ride back was liquid; Job’s face relaxed into a tranquil smile and Emeka’s a complement.
On the way into town, they took a different route, skipping across Highway 6 and cutting to Interstate 80. It was a longer ride, but Job said nothing until they’d pulled onto a service road. A string of glass storefronts faced the main road, and they stopped in front of one with miniature bears and helium-filled balloons in the window. Emeka selected two stuffed bears with candy canes in their mouths. At the register, he plunged his hand into a barrel of candy canes and dumped the heap into a plastic bag. A pot of plastic lilies sat on the countertop, the kind with little faces meant to be filled with photographs. Without words, Job already knew. This one would be for Gladys. Emeka paid and collected his peace offering.
Not until they were out the door did it occur to Job that perhaps he should purchase a gift for Ifi. By then, something had caught his eye: an electronics warehouse at the end of the storefronts, with a faded billboard and a banner with markdowns indicated by slashed-through numbers. “There,” he said, and the two went into the warehouse.
A red-faced salesman in a collared blue shirt greeted them. Almost immediately Job saw the one he wanted. He marched past the salesman.
“Thirty-two inches,” the salesman said, following them too closely. It was the same size as Emeka’s. “Crystal-clear picture—”
“No, no,” Job said suddenly. He swiveled away and pointed at an even bigger television. “This one.”
“You are drunk, my friend,” Emeka said, his eyes growing large.
The salesman gulped. Job could see him retracing his steps, going through his script a second time to find where he had left off. “It has a crystal-clear picture and excellent sound. It’s compatible with the latest digital technologies. Your own home theater.”
“I’ll buy it,” Job said.
“What do you need that for?” Emeka asked, his voice tight. “What are you trying to prove?”
Both Job and the salesman ignored him. The salesman beamed. “In-store credit. No interest for the first twelve months. Free delivery.”
“Good,” Job said, “I want it now.”
“Not a problem, my good man. We’ll have two fellows get it on a truck ASAP.”
At the register, Job filled out the application form. The clerk ran his credit, approved him, and Job left with a small plastic yellow bag full of receipts and warranty information.
On the way back to the hospital, as Job grinned with satisfaction, Emeka glared at the road ahead. His hands wobbled on the steering wheel. He complained that Americans watched too much television. He said it was bad for the eyes and for the brain. He said his daughters were university educated because he had restricted their television use. He said he didn’t care for any of the nonsense that came from television. To illustrate his point, he took the card out of his pocket with Sheryl’s phone number on it. He tore it in two and tossed it aside. It landed in the plastic bag on Job’s lap.
Cheryl clutched Ifi’s letter, still folded into a tight square, when Job arrived at the lot in the early hours of the morning. His stomach grumbled. He shivered and felt exhausted from his overnight shift, another night of Captain’s howling complaints about his “son,” an angry night spent lashing out at the nurses as they entered his room. Job was the only aide who could comfort him, and as such he was left to attend to Captain’s rages, his bloodcurdling shrieks, brutal curses, and gummy blows. Still, Captain’s wrath was a reprieve from his sorrow. Tomorrow would be a sad one. Tomorrow Captain would curl in a ball on his bed, his body wracked with unanswered grief, and that, for some reason, was the hardest to bear.
Job snatched the letter from Cheryl’s hands, feigning disgust to disguise his relief. His in-laws would never see another one of Ifi’s letters again. He would make sure of that. Only after he had crumpled the letter and allowed it to drift into the snow did Job notice Cheryl closely observing him.
With a shivery laugh, she said, “Good riddance. I’d have done it myself if you’d just asked.”
“It’s nothing. Just some nonsense.” After a moment, reluctantly, he added, “Thank you.”
Snow had begun to fall, light flecks that coated her eyelashes. An awkward moment passed as Job pried open his door, heavy with ice. He said good-bye, thanked her again, and started the car. Only after he’d circled the lot to make his way to the street did he glance back and notice Cheryl pulling the lip of her coat up past her chin to her nose before steadily bearing her weight through the snow. He wondered how far away she lived, and, begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that when he had arrived at work that night, it had been Cheryl who had called to let him know that she had Ifi’s letter. She could just as easily have kept it for herself or read its contents. As far as he could tell, she had done neither. He’d be late arriving home, but he was filled with a sudden rush of relief at the certainty that the letter would never make it into the hands of his in-laws. He turned the car one last time and opened the door for her.
Cheryl climbed in, shivering. “Thanks. I mean it,” she said. “My car’s in the shop. Piece of crap has a broken muffler.”
Heat from their breaths clouded the windows as they drove through the calm streets. Every few minutes Job dragged his forearm in a circle along the windshield so that he could see out. His woolly coat left a jagged streak across the window. When they arrived in front of the tall wooden house, with its peeling siding and lopsided gateposts, they sat for a moment in mutual stillness. In the early morning hours, the street was quiet, a fading streetlight lazily flickering. One lone bird, abandone
d for the season, waded across the street before clumsily tottering away. This was Cheryl’s home, the source of their strange encounter. Had it not been for such a place, they might never have met all those years ago for a marriage of convenience. They might never have met this time. This was what she was willing to fight for.
She seemed to hear him, because suddenly she spoke, but she didn’t say what he expected to hear. “I never had all of those nice things,” she said softly. “I been working my whole life, and there’s nothing to show for it. Just the house, and I can barely even keep it up. You just got here, but you, you’ve made yourself a success. How is it possible?”
Job burned with shame. “You read the letter.”
“I thought it was one of my letters.” She bit her bottom lip, but instead of guilt, a pained expression crossed her face. “I’ve never been the type to bring that kind of treatment out in any man, just lies.” When she said this, with the strange note of jealousy in her voice, Job’s fists relaxed. She had believed every word of it. With all of Ifi’s bragging, all of her exaggeration, it was as if she had entered the car and interceded on his behalf. Cheryl offered a dry laugh, and only because he felt it was the polite thing to do, Job laughed along with her.
A deep frown set on her face. “She must be the happiest woman in the world. I can’t even fix that stupid piece of shit for a car. A hundred dollars left, and the jerk mechanic holds it hostage. Complete asshole. I’m not a thief. I always pay when I get the money.” She paused and grunted. “Your wife must have it made.”
“She does,” Job said with sudden pride. “My wife has enjoyed many blessings in her life because of me. She no longer has to work. She will go to university in America. I have decided that she will be trained to be a nurse in my clinic. It is I who brought water and electricity to my in-laws in Nigeria, sef. I have provided for her cousins’ education. Just yesterday, I bought her a new television. It is a surprise, but I am sure she will be pleased.”
Mr. and Mrs. Doctor Page 9