Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

by Julie Iromuanya

  Ifi was not done. She flung open the front door. “Victor,” she said, breathless. “Victor.” In one wide step, she took the broken porch stairs, trampling through the hydrangeas along the side of the house. She pushed past Gladys, who was already at the door. “Victor,” she said again. She was too fast for Gladys.

  He took a step back.

  Ifi halted. “You are not my Victor.”

  “You are not well.”

  Hands were on Ifi’s back. She was rising. Have I fallen? she thought.

  Gladys propped Ifi against her doughy side and walked her around the porch and up the stairs into the house. “Get the mail,” she instructed the boy. Gladys sat her down on the couch like a lumpy package. A moment later, Ifi heard the boy’s footsteps following them into the house.

  “You are not well, my dear,” Gladys said again. “Why didn’t you call your friends and tell us what happened? If I had not glanced at the newspaper this morning, sef, I would not have known. If I had not seen your husband’s car in the street, I would not have stopped. If my boy had not looked in your window and seen you, we would have gone.”

  Gladys was a blur. There were sounds, the clunk of water hitting the pot, the whisper of flames on the range.

  “Boy, get away from the glass.” With a broom, Gladys pushed the pieces into a dustpan. A sound like wind chimes as the pieces collected in a heap at the bottom of the rubbish bin. “Look at this floor. Paper everywhere. What have you people done to this table? This kitchen. A hole large enough for a cat in your wall. I tell you, this place is not fit for a human. It smells.” She sifted through the papers scattered about the floor. “I will help you, my dear.”

  A warm cup. Ifi’s hands closed around the mug. Her lips parted and the hot, bitter liquid drained into the back of her throat. Her eyes opened. Gladys sat next to Ifi on the couch. Dressed in blue from head to toe, she had a patch of dirt and leaves stuck to her rear. Her headscarf was partially unraveled, and the free ends of her braided ringlets drooped to one side.

  Ifi’s eyes took her in, and in one fell swoop Gladys’s lips twisted into a frowning smile. A large tote bag was draped over one arm. She set it down, and the gold bangles at her wrists jingled. “Had Emeka not said, ‘Gladys, my dear, look at this newspaper’ this morning, I would never have known.”

  The boy. His name was Michael. When Gladys admonished him for playing among the broken pieces of glass, Michael sighed in exasperation and cut his eyes at his mother. No, Victor would never do that, Ifi thought. Victor would smile that dull smile of his just before trotting away.

  “You people have been hiding from us, but I say, we are Igbos in this America.”

  Yes, the lips were the right size. The nose the same. The belly the same. The legs, just a shortened version. Still, Ifi thought, He is not my Victor.

  “We are brothers and sisters. We are family,” Gladys continued. “We must care for one another.”

  Michael tilted his face into the hole in the wall. His fingers found a piece of loose plaster, and he placed the pieces in his mouth. He tasted, balked, and spat the moist chunks back into the darkness. He made a sound. “Blech.”

  Gladys forced her fingers into his mouth and plucked out the remaining pieces caught in his teeth. She raised her nose into the air and pinched it closed with her fingers. “This place smells.” Then, “This is unsafe, my dear. One day a big rat will come to your house.” Sifting through her purse, she retrieved a phone and dialed a number. As Ifi watched in silence, Gladys arranged for someone to come and fix the wall.

  “Mama, what’s that smell?” Michael asked.

  “Shut up,” she said to him.

  “Mama, I think you have something on you. Is that doggy doo?”

  “This room smells,” Gladys said again. She sniffed and glanced around the room, finding the smell on herself. “Nshi!” It was from the neighbor’s dog. In a flurry she disappeared to the kitchen, her sandal backs clicking as they met the hardwood floors. Water. She returned with a damp spot on the back of her blue wrapper dress.

  “My dear,” Gladys said on her return, her nose raised, clutching a bag of waste. “You are not taking care of yourself. Take this rubbish.” She sent the boy out with the trash.

  Ifi chuckled. Gladys was pretending that the smell came from the bag instead of from her.

  “You are not well, oh. Why has your husband left you alone? Why did he not take you with him to bury the child? What kind of husband is it that leaves his wife alone when she is not well?”

  The thickness in Ifi’s head thinned until just a bit of vapor fogged her head. More liquid and her mouth opened up too. In a clear voice, she responded, “Because he is with other women.”

  Silence. Gladys’s hands trembled. The mug in her hand shook. Brown liquid seeped onto the floor. “I am tired,” she said for explanation. She found a rag in the kitchen and began to wipe. “Emeka works all day, and the boy runs me around the house all night. You see how skinny I am? Like I don’t eat. Because of the boy.” But she was far from skinny. In fact, she had grown rather large and lumpy, her face covered in blemishes.

  “My Victor kept me too. He was a noisy baby and a noisy child.”

  “He doesn’t allow me sleep. Even now. Ah ah! The boy is four years.” Gladys had an anxious look to her. “I have six daughters. Why must my lastborn give me so much trouble, heh?”

  “It is something.” Ifi’s eyes fixed on Michael. The eyes. The lips. The nose.

  His feet thudded along the hardwood floors. Now at the window, he glared out at the sun. He picked at his navel—an outie—placed his finger in his ear, tasted it, mixed it with the snot in his nose.

  Disgusting. Ifi cringed.

  Just the same, she reminded herself, He has the eyes, the lips, the nose. “As if my Victor is walking,” she said to Gladys.

  “No,” Gladys said softly, “not at all.”

  “The old people would call him ogbanje.”

  “Nonsense,” Gladys said.

  “My Victor’s spirit cannot rest. My boy’s spirit remains in that boy.”

  “You are not a believer of such foolishness,” Gladys said. Still, an unmistakable tremor rippled across Gladys’s face. Ifi knew that Gladys had always been a believer, paying native doctors for years in hopes that she would conceive a son. Like Ifi, they had all heard the stories—from their grandparents and great-grandparents, from their superstitious second cousins or aunts—about the children who refused to remain dead.

  “My boy’s spirit does not rest. He was not ready to go. He is a special child.” Ifi frowned. “How long will he live among us this time?”

  “Blasphemy,” Gladys said, her hands reaching out to the boy. They closed around his wrist protectively.

  “Ow!” he said.

  Gladys turned on him. “Shut up! Don’t talk back to your mother.”

  He let out a fiendish wail that escalated into a dog’s snarl.

  “No, not like my Victor at all,” Ifi said softly. “Victor does not walk with malice.” But then she wondered, Has he changed so much? A descent into another world and back. An unjust end. Perhaps he has learned jealousy, she thought.

  “It is my boy, Victor, born again in Michael. It must be. It has to be him,” she pronounced. Then frowning, she added, “My Victor could not leave me without saying good-bye. He has gone a long way only to come back to his mother. Gladys, dear, you can see it. Can’t you see it?”

  A wave of tenderness washed over Ifi. She reached out to Gladys in concern. “I am afraid for you, my friend.” This boy is in danger, she thought. His body was slight. He would need to be fed well at the proper intervals. The food must be prepared properly. Because he was blessed and also cursed, his sisters surely despised him. Therefore, it only made sense that they should not drink from the same glasses anymore. And never, never must the boy ride a bicycle. This time, Ifi decided, I will protect my Victor.

  She stared at the peculiar expression on Gladys’s face. Why had they not kep
t in touch for so long? Six years had passed since the two families’ last outing together. Just like that, Gladys and Emeka had disappeared from their lives. It had all started with that first birthday party that Gladys and Emeka had failed to attend. After that, Job refused to speak to them, and since Ifi didn’t exactly miss them, she considered it an undisguised blessing. Well, she would remedy that. She recalled Gladys withering under hospital sheets after her own son died. They had even donated their baby’s crib to her. “My sister,” Ifi said, “I will help you watch over him. I will protect him. Ogbanje never stay long with us. But this will be another story. As you say, we are fellow Igbos.”

  Gladys’s words were a sudden explosion. “Shut up!” she protested. “Shut your foolish mouth! He is not some spirit, some ghost. He is a boy, a boy I tell you!” But she stammered the words out. And now her legs were moving her out the door. Too fast. She was gone. But Ifi knew she would be back.

  In two weeks’ time, Ifi had already paid several visits to Gladys’s home, sometimes three to four times a day. Each time, Gladys would grudgingly open the door to her. Each time, she would watch hungrily as Ifi tapped her way into the room and performed her absolutions and prayers. Following this, Ifi would grasp Michael in her arms and thoroughly examine each aspect of his body. If she found a nick or cut on the boy’s elbow or knee, she thoroughly chastised Gladys as she did now.

  “You will kill him, eh?

  “Just like that, you will put the boy in harm’s way?

  “Is that what you are trying to do, kill our only son? Is that right?”

  Gladys crumpled on the couch. Tears made their way down her face. Crocodile tears. With one finger, Ifi shoved her hard in her chest, and the tears stopped as immediately as they had started. Emeka calmly watched the scene from the arched doorway leading into the kitchen. His palms hugged an empty mug. Television roared in the background, a football game just breaking for halftime. Two commentators chuckled over the mishaps of the game, one calm and avuncular, the other younger, with a raw spot on his head where the sun struck.

  Dinnertime. Gladys led the way into the formal dining hall. A line of portraits documenting the growth of the family hung in the corridor. In the earliest portraits, Emeka and Gladys were young—the expression of youth in matching native prints. These were followed by portraits displaying the succession of daughters, growing in count with each picture. In the last, Gladys and Emeka, surrounded by their six daughters, frowned at the camera. In their lap was Michael, a fat and surly infant. Like Victor.

  A large oak table filled the dining room. A drooping chandelier shone rippling shadows and lights against the papered walls. One of the daughters set the table, counting the matching tumblers, forks, and spoons in their places as she made her way around. At nine, she was the closest in age to Michael. There was something about the way she moved, cocking one skinny leg in front of the other, balancing her large belly crookedly, arms akimbo. She’s a sly one, Ifi thought, remembering her from all those years ago, forcing her finger up her dead brother’s nose while her mother lay in agony. She was trouble then, Ifi thought. She is trouble now.

  One dish left. Before the girl had a chance to react, Ifi flung the dish from her. When it struck the ceramic tile, it crumbled.

  With wide, frightened eyes, the girl gazed at Ifi. “What did I do?”

  “I see you,” Ifi whispered.

  “I didn’t do nothing!” the girl howled.

  Gladys rushed across the room. “Shush your mouth!” She popped her girl on the back of the head. Her braids shook forward, and the beads in her hair clinked.

  She wailed at her mother, “I hate you!”

  “Shut your mouth!” Gladys shouted. “You are spoiled, oh!”

  Through it all—the wailing, the girl’s shrieks, and Michael’s sudden banging and tapping of the dishes on the table—Ifi’s voice cut in calmly. “He will not eat from any of these dishes.”

  Gladys agreed.

  “That’s not fair!” A bellow rose from the little girl. “Why’s he so special? I’m smarter than him. I’m faster than him. He’s nothing.”

  Just then, Emeka stepped into the room clutching his mug, staring about his home like a floundering fish.

  “Go buy dishes for the boy,” Gladys said to him. “Biko.”

  He inspected the damage of the broken dish in a heap on the floor. “What happened here?”

  “He needs his own dishes. These are not good.”

  “What is wrong with these?” He sighed, a long, tired sigh drawn deeply through his nostrils. His eyes met Ifi, who was stooped over Michael as he continued his ruckus. “Hasn’t this gone far enough?” he asked, a whine in his voice.

  “Do you want something to happen to the boy?” Gladys asked. “Is that what you want? Our only son whom God has finally blessed us with? I only want him to be well.”

  A thought suddenly occurred to Ifi. She remembered Victor’s plastic cups and plates, his toys. “He will need dishes from my home.”

  “I agree with you of only one thing,” Emeka said on the ride home. He cocked the window down and allowed the ashes from his cigarette to scatter into the gusts of hot air. He blew the smoke out the window too. He was trying to keep the smell from staining the car. Ifi already imagined the howling row that Gladys would make of it the next time she rode in the car.

  Ifi waited. When he didn’t immediately reply, she pressed, “Of what?”

  “The girl,” Emeka said. “She is jealous. Her whole life she has fought with her sisters for everything. For the last jelly bean, for the last scoop in the peanut butter jar, and because of it, we have given her everything she wants. Why should she stop now? When we bring these dishes for her brother, she will be the first to rush and fill his plate with rice. She will pour juice in his cup, and then she will spit in it. She will mix her mucous with his rice.” He chuckled. “But what of it? She is my favorite, you know? Her mother was just like her. And that is how she stole my heart.”

  Ifi thought this over carefully, remembering the flicker of rebelliousness. “Like my Victor.”

  Emeka turned a strange glance in her direction. “Yes, I suppose. But you see, my Michael is not like that at all. Michael is simple. He has no conniver in him. I have always liked my youngest child best until another comes along. But this time it is different. My boy will go to the best schools. He will have the best clothes. Even if I starve, I will make sure of that. But, you see, no matter what, the boy will only perform adequately. He has no imagination.”

  Why is Emeka sharing this with me? she wondered. Why is he insulting his only son? It was not right. But remembering the boy with the chunks of the wall in his mouth, his mother raking the pieces out, she hesitated as she responded. “Give him some time. Push him. It will come.” Nonetheless, she could feel herself wavering in her doubt. Michael had her Victor’s looks, but that was all, nothing more. An answer, any answer, would do for now, she decided. “His journey from the spirit world has filled him with jealousy. Among us on this earth, the light will return.”

  Emeka tossed up his hands. “You and my wife are competing for the crazy award.”

  Ifi glared at him. “You are so certain, are you?” Years ago, Job had huffed and laughed over Gladys’s attempts to secure a boy child through native doctors. Now she wondered aloud, “You are so certain that your juju didn’t interfere with my boy, take him from me, and send him to your home in that simple boy’s body? We don’t understand how native medicine works in this America. If it had not been for you and your wife, my boy would still be here.”

  “I thought so at first,” Emeka said. “All those years sending money away, coming home to find chicken bones collected by the door, semen collected in condoms, hair collected in Ziploc bags. Then one day the boy comes. Just like that. No explanation. We went and looked at the ultrasound, and there it was, the image of my son. Even at her age, after nine months, she gave birth to a live, healthy boy. Just like that, I began to believe it all. Maybe
my wife has been right all these years, you know?

  “But now, no uh, I have had enough of juju, ogbanje, spirits, and native doctors.” He glared into her eyes intensely. “But what am I to do? I have been losing my wife inch by inch all these years. And now it has come to this. You see, I am here driving you to bring your boy’s dishes only because that is what will please my wife. That is all. I am only the messenger.” Again, he paused, his face imploring. “Come now, you cannot believe all of this. You’re a woman like her. She listens to you. Talk to her. Tell her to stop this nonsense.”

  “And what if we are right?” Ifi asked. “You have it all figured out, eh? But what if we are right about this boy? He is special,” she said. “He belongs to us all, and it is my duty to protect him.”

  Shaking his head, Emeka blew out the window. “Right,” he said. He smiled at her kindly. “Go home. Rest. Take care of yourself.” They pulled up in front of the house. From inside, a forgotten light glowed. Probably the light in the kitchen over the stove. It had likely been on for days. Now Ifi wondered if the bathroom faucet still ran. Has it been running the entire time I have been away? By now, the floor would be high with water. It would leak through the tiles and pass into the crawl space. Well, let it go. She said to herself. Let it all go.

  Emeka still smiled a half frown, like he was stiff with a thought. Perhaps he still needed proof. Why do I feel the need to convince him? she wondered. Deep down, she knew why. She needed to say something so that he believed. After all, where am I without hope? she asked herself. “He is the image of my Victor. Just look at him. How can you deny that?”

  “Yes. That I cannot deny.” Emeka stared at her for a long moment. Finally, he asked, “What of Job?”

  She stiffened. “He’s fine.”

  “He is in Nigeria burying the boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are here?”

  She didn’t answer.