Now, seeing Mama Ngozi approach him in the kitchen, he instantly becomes panicky, knowing the beating he is about to receive. He quickly leaves the wares he just finished rinsing on the sink. Very rapidly he moves away from the sink—and calculatedly away from Mama Ngozi too, who is advancing toward him in anger.
Mama Ngozi eventually catches up with him at the end of the kitchen. One second her right arm is raised in the air above her head, and the next second it is descending in the direction of Okechukwu’s face. But he very swiftly steps aside and dodges her impending slap. She misses his face, and her knuckles hit hard on the marbled wall instead.
It is the uptight force of her body that actually propels her to the wall involuntarily when Okechukwu dodges her fist. The pain she is now feeling from this collision is immense, and it numbs her affected palm. This makes her furious. Seeing Okechukwu with a little smirk of victory on his face infuriates her even more. It must seem funny for Okechukwu, seeing his madam squirm in pain that ordinarily he would receive from her without grumble. But Mama Ngozi does not find it funny at all. Okechukwu must have thought it funny in his juvenile understanding, but it is not so for Mama Ngozi, who finds it very confrontational.
Therefore she tightened up her beautiful bathrobe around herself, lest she runs nude, and she removed her wet slippers lest she slips. She pursues Okechukwu around the marbled kitchen in a mad rage, but he keeps dodging, and she keeps missing, making it much more annoying for Mama Ngozi.
But by the third round run around the kitchen, she catches a grip of his left arm, pulls him toward herself, and with two taut palms pushes him directly across and into the opposite wall with a great force of annoyance. Okechukwu is heavily dislodged by that, and he scrambles to hold his stand for a minute but cannot. With such a combination of panic and fury, force and surprise, he cannot help himself but fall head forward toward the nearest wall. He hits his head into the wall and sinks to the floor.
Cynthia, who at the moment is standing by the kitchen entrance and has been watching with her own jitters, screams in a very loud voice and runs toward Mama Ngozi in a rash thrust that is just equal to the force of that push and collision. Seeing her approach, Mama Ngozi turns around, and vigorously pushes her away and toward the sink. Cynthia falls backward, hitting her shoulders on the sink. The sink shakes violently at the impact, and all the china shatters to pieces on the white marble floor. This impact leaves severe cuts on Cynthia’s left shoulder where her oversize dress was hanging off, as well as also tearing through the feebleness of her clothing to reach other portions of her smooth, tender skin, and before long, blood begins to ooze out of her wounds. She promptly falls to the floor in horror and shock near Okechukwu, who is still down.
“Stupid children! So you two can now challenge me in my own house? I will teach you serious lessons you won’t forget in your entire lives!” Mama Ngozi fumes loudly and angrily. She is agitated, and her body is once again moistened, as though fresh from bath. This time it is by her own perspiration. She goes straight to her slippers, puts them on quickly, and storms out of the kitchen, leaving the kids in the debris.
But as though she has forgotten something, Mama Ngozi suddenly returns again to the kitchen. She picks up Cynthia’s fallen dusting rag from the corridor where it had been left, only she is holding it with her left foot. She kicks the piece of dusting cloth with one experienced foot toward the fallen children, and the rag determinedly lands in front of Cynthia, near her pale face. Mama Nozi then adds, “Make sure you clean up these whole mess you have made before I come back to properly decide what to do with the two of you!” She now storms out of the kitchen once again, this time straight to the comfort of her beautiful room.
“Okechukwu,” Cynthia calls two minutes later as she finally sits up. She shakes him, but he is not responding. Ignoring the ooze of her own blood, which pulsates even faster with her efforts of calling and shaking Okechukwu’s limp body, Cynthia continues to call, trying to shake him awake. But Okechukwu has fainted. She is frightened and, seeing him so limp, thinks he is dead.
“Hey! Okechukwu nwa nne m!”, meaning “Okechukwu my brother!”. “Okechukwu! Hey God! Please don’t do this to me o. Please!” she cries, pulling him up to herself.
There is no blood on him, but the part of his head that hit the wall is swollen.
“Okechukwu! Okechukwu! Okechukwu!”
Thirteen
“The boy has a serious concussion,” declares the doctor in a drawl. “He will be treated in the emergency room. Pray he survives it.”
That is the last thing Dr. Paul says to Cynthia before prompting that her brother be taken to the emergency room. She herself is taken to the first aid room for the treatment of her wounds. The cuts are deep but not very damaging, and none reach her delicate veins. But they are nonetheless severe and gory. Dr. Paul has no reason whatsoever to be pessimistic about Okechukwu’s survival, but taking one experienced look at the boy’s compelling, not yet diagnosed but symptomatic psychosomatic ennui, he can easily propose that something more serious than just a shock or heavy concussion is underlying somewhere. But he can’t go beyond this proposal now, until after a proper diagnosis is made. Only time will prove to Dr. Paul that his uncommon hunches are usually right.
At the first aid room, Cynthia is very restless and can’t keep still, both from the pains of her cut shoulder and the worries she has for her brother’s life. The nurse in attendance therefore sedates her before treating her wounds.
Cynthia called on Mama Ngozi when she first realized Okechukwu was unconscious, but Mama Ngozi never came out of her room. Cynthia managed all by herself to carry Okechukwu’s unconscious body on her back down the stairs and to the streets, where she called the taxi that brought them to Namaste Specialist Hospital. It was an uphill task, bringing Okechukwu’s limp body down the stairs, especially considering her own large, bleeding wounds and limited physical strength. But she managed it and didn’t quite seem to feel the pain of her own wounds at the time.
The taxi driver she called was also helpful and considerate, seeing all the blood on her. He understood the emergency of the moment, and also disregarded the fare for his service, especially when Cynthia told him she didn’t have any money on her. The man brought them to Namaste, which was the nearest hospital to the house. They were admitted at once.
Now in the waiting hall, Cynthia paces up and down the hallway, nervous and worried and praying for her brother to live. She woke up after two hours of sedation. It is only now that she even begins to feel the aches on her left shoulder, even though they do not sting her so deeply in comparison to the sting of not having Okechukwu with her right now. The bleeding has stopped, and she has a large cotton bandage that was dipped in an analgesic and secured with plasters on her back, covering the largest of the cuts. Her head aches, too.
“What will I do if Okechukwu dies? No, God, please don’t let anything happen to my brother,” she prays almost accusingly. She is afraid that Okechukwu might die. Only the heavens know why she is feeling this way, even faster than a doctor’s decision or diagnosis.
Cynthia seems to be nothing but a panic child, so very fragile at heart by the count of her previous experiences of loss. The thought of the possibility of death makes her shake visibly, especially as Okechukwu is still in the emergency room after these hours. Her mind is in great riot—if Okechukwu is not yet out of the emergency room, it means to her that he is not responding to treatment and that something bad has happened or might happen to him! She is panicky all through her waiting. Okechukwu remains comatose in the ER.
She is now seventeen, and Okechukwu will be thirteen in two months. She has long forgotten the death of their mother in the fresher ordeals of the past year, but now every memory floods back.
“Oh Mummy, where are you?” she screams aloud, surely disturbing the quiet of the hospital hall, but she won’t listen to the nurses that are now com
ing to placate her. “Oh God!” she yells. “Please come to me. Come to me, for there is nobody to help me.”
Despite the nurses’ sincere efforts to calm her down, she refuses yielding to them as her mind quickly runs back again to her mother, and to her aunt Christy, whom she had not actually had any success in contacting all the while. All her and Okechukwu’s sneaking efforts to send her a post in the past one year failed woefully, because they were not properly guided.
“Oh God, please,” she moans. “How can I be in this world alone, just me? How can I face this world?” Her tears are running now without any effort to hold them back. “No way, Lord!” she screams aloud again, in fear this time. “Not again, God. Please, please, please.” She brings her palms up to cover her face and hold her head. Her head feels too heavy for her to carry.
She remains panicky this way in the hospital, crying all the time and praying, pacing up and down the waiting hall and the corridor that leads to the ER. She prays and prays.
Two days later, Okechukwu is still in a coma.
Cynthia prays passionately and anxiously every day, as she now lives in the hospital too, constantly asking God to let Okechukwu revive. The chief operating surgeon, Dr. Paul, who attends to Okechukwu in collaboration with two other doctors, will not mind further expenses incurred at this crucial time that Cynthia continues being in their care as well. He is a gentle man of easygoing disposition who is very passionate about saving lives.
In situations like this, one may simply ask if God is truly alive, and if he truly cares at all for his people, especially those who call on him.
Okechukwu is irrecoverable. The impact of the collision, according to Dr. Paul, left a major cut in his brain, and he had serious internal bleeding. Some irreparable injury it is, and he is therefore not redeemed. Thus, Okechukwu gave up his ghost to whoever owns it after three days.
His death is an unprecedented wreck on Cynthia. This is to be the most painful loss and experience of her life. When their mother died, she thought it was the worst, but she was wrong. Unknown to her tender heart, she was very wrong!
Before now, and ever since they became alone, she had been imagining how she and Okechukwu would grow up to have a better life. She had everything well thought out, and she had seen their bright future, even in the midst of their sufferings, shortcomings, and handicaps at Mama Ngozi’s. She was steadfast in her faith that things would one day get better. She believed that God would make a way for them someday.
Now, what will she do? Her faith and belief are wickedly nipped from the very remaining scion of hope that keeps her going. This is surely more than she can handle. Oh, the world is wicked!
Two days later, she wakes from a tranquil sleep. What happened to her? Where is she?
Lost and almost moronic, she gapes silently and endlessly, lying languidly once again, but this time on a bed in the first aid room. Gradually she begins to pick up the pictures around her. And finally, she begins to recall—her sedated memories are now returning—piece by piece.
Before long, she is filled with thoughts and memories of Okechukwu again. Oh, they were close, and they were really friends. Okechukwu had been her only friend and companion in this journey of life, especially since their mother died. It was a journey of no sure destination, yet she had been sure of her steps with Okechukwu by her side. But now he is gone!
“Oh God! Where is my Okechukwu?” she weeps, letting the tears fall from her eyes silently and blur her vision. She feels so left alone, so deserted by all for which she loves and cares. Life seems useless!
Three weeks later, Okechukwu is buried in a public cemetery after all distressing doubts have been cleared, both officially and personally, by Paul, Cynthia, and everyone involved. One of the doubts for Dr. Paul had been the appropriateness of burying someone who still has family without contacting the family and taking the full responsibility of it. It was a real trying time for them all, and a very tough moment of critical decision. But in all, Okechukwu’s death is what it is—a life-jolting blow on Cynthia.
Now, Cynthia thinks God is dead, which at the moment is her only available explanation as to why her earnest prayers are not even heard at all, let alone answered. In those last three days of Okechukwu’s life at the hospital, when he was in coma, everybody knew Cynthia’s fervent supplication had been for God to spare his life, but he didn’t!
Even at the time he was finally pronounced dead by Dr. Paul, she still thought Dr. Paul was just being so mean to play with her already discomfited heart by telling her a fable. She didn’t want to believe him. She had sincerely and trustingly believed that God would answer her prayers, that it would be impossible for Okechukwu to die. However, he was already dead at the time.
When Dr. Paul told her, she doubted him so much and demanded to immediately see Okechukwu. She was obliged. As she entered the ER with Dr. Paul, another doctor, and some of the nurses, she hopefully still believed Okechukwu was only still comatose. But it was his dead body she saw. She realized that later, but only after pulling, dragging, and calling him several times, to no avail.
She was madly disappointed. Completely taken by her shock and madness, she was also enraged. Then she turned to Dr. Paul in that rage and, unknowingly transferring the whole disappointment she felt for God to him, swooped on him suddenly like a tigress, drawing her fingernails through his face. She soon grabbed onto his shirt, tearing it apart in an unequalled anguish, leaving the upper part of his body half bare. She ran her small fists frantically all over his bare torso, and she groped at him helplessly, hitting him on his chest. Then she ripped off a chunk of his shirt in that action, tearing it all to shreds and leaving him completely topless this time. Lastly she gripped him vehemently for the much anticipated miracle that would resurrect Okechukwu for her, refusing to let go. He must give me my Okechukwu! She cried.
Dr. Paul was totally nonplused and speechless. He had never seen or experienced such an expression firsthand before; never had he seen such an expression of agony so up close. He was truly taken aback by all of it. But strangely, he was also instantly caressed to his bones by that demonstrated anguish, in a way he just could not explain or understand. He was transported to a very different dimension of his understanding that was far beyond the common. A passion in some part of him was easily awakened just by the sight of Cynthia in this state.
Actually, besides his ever-cool nature, real compassion for people, and big heart, Dr. Paul is one advanced man, not just in surgical medicine but also in understanding the psychology of human behavior to a large extent. At the moment he truly understands the transference and regressive aggression in Cynthia’s reaction to her brother’s death. In that enraged assail on him, he had been merely complacent to simply hold Cynthia still, hoping she would soon calm down.
But she didn’t stop! With clenched teeth and tight fists, Cynthia agonizingly thumped away more blows on his bare chest, even harder this time, instead of calming down as he’d expected. But Dr. Paul kept still for her in the overwhelming moment, rather in a mesmerized pity for the girl. He was artfully suppressing her violence with his direct, deep, steady gaze into her eyes. The gaze that bore love, sympathy, and great understanding of her state. Cynthia saw it in that fleeting second, but she wouldn’t yield to that or to anything.
However, she could not have helped herself even if she tried to, for the present reality is far defeating of her essential fantasy—a fantasy of a great future with her brother! She refuses to believe anything else or be melted by this man. All she wants is her brother, and these people, especially this man, allowed him to die. No! God must be wicked! They must wake Okechukwu for her! She cries and cries, struggling with herself and angry with God, Dr. Paul, the other doctors, and the nurses. She is angry with everybody and everything, refusing to believe that Okechukwu is really dead. She won’t calm down or be consoled. The whole world must have turned completely against her, a
s it even begins to spin slowly around her right now. The world is indeed wicked, and she is going to collapse here and now. It would be better if she dies, too! Wicked, wicked world! Wicked, wicked!
She is uttering various facets of her grief and has continued struggling with anybody that dares try to calm her down. She is so angry, fighting and struggling with all the “wicked” people around her in the guise of doctors, nurses, or anyone else that opts to join the group by trying to give her some “nonsense empty words” in the name of explanation or comfort.
But then, she soon feels six different hands, almost like a million hands, pulling her away. She is suddenly feeling dizzy, too. Her head spins now, and she is going to sleep. Yes! It’s better she slips away, too. She is going to die now—she wants to die! She just has to go over; after all, her mom and dad are there, and her dear, sweet Okechukwu is there now, too. She is going to go. Go… go… go… and she blacks out.
It took three nurses to disentangle her grip on Dr. Paul and pull her away, and in her struggles she was sedated once again with a short injection. Then afterward, she is sent to the first aid room on a stretcher. The drugs calmed her nerves and ended her momentary anguish-induced madness. The sedative is a strong one this time and takes about forty-eight hours of sleep to calm her nerves before she finally wakes back to the harsh reality.
Cynthia’s reaction to the news is very outrageous, but Dr. Paul’s actions are far from outrageous. Maddened by the news and reality of Okechukwu’s death, she lost her control in that enraged anguish, and her depressed condition touched Dr. Paul immensely in an unusual way. But luckily for both himself and his good personality, Cynthia does not leave her nails long, for that would have left his face and upper body with bloody claws. He was also lucky, that the clenched teeth didn’t quite turn into a bite off his chest.
One Love, Many Tears Page 13