‘But, am I really his?’
‘What do you think?’
She walked towards the door and stopped, not opening it, ‘I gave birth to you, and I showed you your father. He denies you and humiliates you, even in death. You should believe what you think makes you happy.’
He felt every part of his body singe, as he could not understand why she was being calm while he brimmed with anxieties.
He shook in his chair and thought of how every fight in his primary school resulted in a song, ‘Show us your father.’ How everyone got to know he didn’t have a father always baffled him and it was that anger in him that he transferred to fighting bullies; that he soon became known as a saviour of soft boys. And then, he read, and read, and read, and found himself believing he was made to fight for the causes of the oppressed. Even Kayo became his friend because he had stood up for him when a teacher called him ‘a blockhead who could never make it in life.’ He stood up and narrated how his mother and himself carried heavy baskets of cocoa from the farm to the market, before she became a typist. He told them how it appeared like he would never sleep on a bed when they slept on a mat, ‘My mother could barely read when she decided to become a primary school teacher. Ma’am, if my mother could do it, why can’t Kayo?’
He was the eight-year-old who wanted the world in his hands at the time. It was also an open secret that Kayo was a scoundrel who could be found on every wrong side of the law. On that day, Kayo stood head straight, his eyes turned to him in full gratitude. Their friendship began. Even though Kayo continued to do things which made the adults throw curses at him; looking at women taking their baths in the stream and rushing off with their wrappers or inviting other young boys to peep at adults as they made love. Kayo was everything a parent wouldn’t want in a child, or a friend a mother wouldn’t encourage her son to keep. Yet, their friendship endured—until he went to prison.
‘Eni, I—we suffered. Your father decided his path, and when I look back, I wish I never listened to his plea to go to his boss, so he could get a promotion. Even though I never slept with the man, my crime was that I agreed to his request. How could I have known I was not to accept? How could I have known that he would turn into a beast? He threw me out of the house at just a few minutes to 3am.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier—45 years, and now? How do I authenticate this, this—fable? Do you know how I struggled to know him—the little of him I knew? Do you know what it means to—what do I know? I’ve never even met your relations.’
There was a tear in her voice when she said, ‘But you know I am an orphan. I was raised in the Methodist Church.’
‘Yes. You’re so good at stories. Who are you really?’
‘I’m leaving. It is better to leave now.’ There was not only a note of finality in her voice, her voice shook, and though he couldn’t see her, he was certain she trembled as well. At that moment, he was past caring.
‘Leave! Leave and never come back again. Ever! I’ve known more sorrow in years. I see why you always wanted me near you like a loincloth tied around your waist. I see why I could never find a reason to settle down…you are a—’ Not finding the words, he said, ‘Leave!’
‘Eni…’ her voice was calmer now.
‘Leave! I don’t want you in my life any more. Ever. If you come to this house, I don’t know what I’m capable of, if you return,’ he said. And in a voice meant to hit her in the hardest of way, he said, ‘Why do you keep coming to me? Why do you hold on to me if you don’t have an agenda?’
‘I’m your mother, Eni. You’re my son. A good mother won’t give up on her child, even when they choose darkness over light.’
She sighed, and he imagined her shaking her head as well. Standing by the door, he saw how desperate he was to have her tell him something from her past. The few facts he knew about her were from unfinished notes in diaries, photos with dates and names behind them, and addresses to places about which he spent his younger days wondering, what happened there?
From Ilese, when he could spell suffering back and forth with the hard life they lived there, while she went to study for her teacher training, to the move to Lagos, when he thought he was now closer to his father, and could perhaps enjoy the benefit of having one, his mother’s silence remained, and the few times she spoke, it was like his life would remain a search for puzzle pieces. She always left something unsaid, something left to be found out.
Prof took a seat and contemplated how his life was surrounded by a grief that invented him again and again. Perhaps, he thought, if Desire came to see him, he would share this part of his life with her. He wondered if he should run after his mother and invite her back into the room so that he could tell her that he never felt present in his own body all those years—and his fights for people were a fight for himself. For every fight he won, he felt like someone who had surmounted a demon that reduced his identity, his achievements, and his hopes into one word: bastard. He knew she felt he did not need to feel like one, but how could she know what it was to feel what you had not carried? She was no longer outside when he checked from the door, and he went back into the house. With his lips trembling, he finally let out a muffled scream, ‘Maaaaami!’
26
Remilekun returned from Mr. America wearing a gloomy face. Desire did not ask her what was wrong with her, she simply stood up from the bed and decided to take a stroll down the road. She wanted to talk to someone, someone who would listen. As she approached a bend that led into another street, she stopped by a stall whose owner was most likely home at that time, looked at the Nokia phone in her hand and mustered up some courage to call Basira. Desire had no idea what she wanted to say to Basira, but she called with the hope that she would listen.
‘Basira, bawo ni?’
‘I am fine-o. You go fit call me back,’ she yawned, ‘I just finish fucking.’ There was a giggle in her voice.
Desire was quiet, ‘I hope you’re fine, now.’
‘I’m fine. God give, God take. It is God that take pregnancy that spoil that will give pregnancy that will give baby. Anyway, to have baby you fuck, you lose baby you fuck,’ Basira laughed. ‘Pray for me, or anything you know how to do. I am starting to think I should have more children. Maybe four or five children in a house are good. I want plenty.’
‘Take it easy. I thought we agreed you won’t have more babies.’
‘I have to do baby more-o. How person will hold man down?’
Desire paused and not pushing the discussion asked, ‘How is your husband taking the news of the miscarriage?’
‘He did not happy at all, but that is the way God do His thing. He give. He take.’ Suddenly, Basira’s voice became full of life, ‘Me and my husband have accepted the thing that happen to the pregnancy… Inna Lillahi wa ina Ilayhi raji’un.’
As Desire listened to Basira’s lively voice and the way she appeared less bothered about the miscarriage, she felt there was no way she could initiate the conversation about Ireti and Prof, and to make it more confusing, she did not know what to say about them. She hesitated and then said a quick goodbye and cut the phone call.
She walked back to the house, and Remilekun opened the door for her and welcomed her with a gentleness that was not typical of her. She returned to her bed and said nothing more to Desire. Then, as if it suddenly occurred to Remilekun that she was too dressed up for the room, she started to take off her clothing, one item after the other. The slowness and distant look, the small smile that came and left her face scared Desire and she remembered the young man on the road and her mother at the same time.
‘Remilekun, what is happening? You have been too quiet.’ Remilekun sighed. She came to sit on the bed beside Desire, who now noticed the faint marks left by tears below her eyes. She watched her lips. She resisted the urge to start the conversation until Remilekun broke down crying.
‘Talk to me,’ Desire said, her hand cupping her shoulder.
‘I am pregnant.’
‘Is that why you’r
e crying?’
It was not the first time Remilekun had been pregnant. Most times, it was after the abortion that Desire found out, when it seemed she was wearing a sanitary towel for more than five days, which was usually followed by two days at home taking Ibuprofen every few hours with condensed milk. Remilekun’s pulled-in chin told her that this pregnancy was different from the rest..
‘Why? Why?’ Remilekun cried. She nodded in response to any questions, which made her look different from the brash Remilekun she had come to know, ‘Why can’t I have his baby?’
Desire said nothing to her. She knew that if the baby was Mr. America’s, then it was never going to have a father. It was strange watching Remilekun become timid.
Desire’s phone rang, and she picked it up from the windowsill without looking at the caller. She assumed it was Basira calling back.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello Des-Des, hawayu?’
There was only one person who called her by that name. She sat up on the bed immediately and making eye contact with Remilekun, indicated that it was Mama T calling.
‘You fwiend’s fone has been off since. Why?’
‘Ha, I think her phone was spoilt and she took it to the repairer, but she is here with me, Ma.’
Desire handed Remilekun the phone and watched her friend struggle to sound normal, ‘I have serious fever and if not for the test I would have come home straight… no… don’t bother coming… okay Ma… alright. She’s taking care of me, Ma.’ She handed the phone back to Desire and forced a smile.
They both took in the moment in silence.
‘I thought he would ask me to marry him this time.’ ‘Remilekun, we’ve been on this road before! What do you see in that guy?’
‘What do you see in the madman you go to see every night?’ Her voice was strong, yet Desire knew that the response was just a defence mechanism. Desire stood up from the bed and walked around the room for a few minutes before turning to her friend.
‘I’ll follow you to do it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘This will be the last time.’
***
A small signpost: Tayo Clinic, stuck out from the rooftop of one of the houses hidden inside Mushin open market. It was sandwiched between two two-storey buildings. It could have disappeared within the other houses in the area but for the colour. It was painted in saffron; the colour of Lagos’ danfo buses. It was sheltered by rows of provision shops, spilling into the walkways arranged with packets of milk, cocoa drinks, cornflakes and biscuits. They were packed so high that they tilted forward, but didn’t fall to the ground.
She followed Remilekun down an alley which led to a thin, spindly stairway by the right side of the building, amidst the clamour of traders shouting out as many Yoruba endearments as they could come up with, ‘My sister,’ ‘My husband’s mother,’ ‘Fine aunty,’ ‘My aunty…’ before asking ‘What do you want to buy?’
There were a few more attempts at drawing her attention but when they noticed her lack of interest, the traders were soon calling on other passers-by. They entered the second flat and she opened the swinging door, which had a panel painted in faint white letters: Tayo Clinic. The smell of urine and antibiotics wafted into her nostrils as she walked into the clinic’s reception. They walked towards a girl in a frilled fluorescent-green blouse, sitting behind a counter with stickers of all sorts, selling medicine covered in those same labels. The girl was engrossed in a programme showing on the portable television which sat on the counter. Three empty white plastic chairs in the room were not left out of the sticker plastering. A nurse, sleeping with her mouth open, was in a reception chair.
‘Good morning,’ Desire and Remilekun chorused.
‘Welcome, ma,’ an unrecognisable accent, as if from living among people of different ethnic groups, bounced from the girl’s mouth.
‘I want to see a doctor.’
‘Are you sick? Do you have card here?’
Desire did not reply. She watched the lady, whose eyes widened each time she spoke, with slight amusement. The lady’s pencilled-in eyebrows were like two triangles without bases.
‘I say are you sick?’
‘I think the doctor will be the best person to know that. How much is your hospital card?’ Desire asked.
‘But, Doctor is not around now-o!’ the receptionist stretched her hand towards the open-mouthed nurse and tapped her shoulder.
‘Nurse! Aunty! Aunty! Aunty Nurse!’ Exasperated by the lack of response, she tapped harder. ‘Me, I don’t understand how someone will be sleeping like this-o.’ Three more slaps on her back and the nurse stirred, taking time to stretch out her arms in full.
‘Patient is here-o. She wants to see doctor. Maybe you’ll give her injection if she has malaria, before the doctor come sha.’
Desire looked at Remilekun as the receptionist spoke and they shared a knowing smile.
The girl took out a file from behind the counter and scribbled answers as she asked.
‘Name?’
‘Ayo. Ayo Obembe,’ Desire gave a fake name and looked to Remilekun for confirmation.
‘Sex?’
Desire said nothing to the frilled-blouse girl, who looked up expecting an answer. She realised her folly, with laughter between her teeth.
‘Ha! Female.’
‘Age?’
‘30.’
The girl looked first at Desire and then at Remilekun. She could tell they were not under age, but they were certainly not 30.
‘Occupation?’
‘Teacher.’
‘Family or personal card?’
‘Personal.’
‘Sit down there,’ she changed to pidgin, ‘I don finish my work with you be dat.’
The girl pointed to one of the white plastic chairs and then turned back to the television, ‘That nurse wey dey sleep, maybe she don get belle sef, she go soon come to you.’
The nurse, who was now awake, muttered a ‘Good morning,’ and got up from the chair. She stretched her arms, staggered forward and walked into an inner room. After a few minutes, she came back to the waiting room with a dash of water on her face and faced the girl on the counter, who was tuning the television set to another channel.
‘You better not give people the impression that we remove pregnancy here,’ she spoke in Yoruba. ‘The doctor is on his—’
The girl raised her head up and exclaimed, ‘Ha! Doctor is here-o!’
Desire collected the card from her and did a quick scan before she handed it to Remilekun, who looked away. She handed it to the doctor who was as thin as a javelin pole. The man stretched past the doorpost and walked with what seemed to be caution, as if he was afraid of being blown across the room.
‘Have we met before?’ he asked Remilekun, who looked down at the floor and would not move from the door.
He added, ‘Madam, please come in,’ his voice loud for his thin frame. Desire stopped at the door but Remilekun again insisted she follow her into his office, a small room partitioned with wood.
‘Sit.’
Remilekun sat down on a plastic chair in front of a swivel chair that served as a table, with piles of brown files. Desire stood behind her. The second chair in the room, for visitors, had a broken leg.
‘So, what can I do for you, miss?’
Desire looked at Remilekun with the hope that she would talk this time.
‘My husband wants an abortion. He thinks three kids are enough.’
Remilekun placed her hand on the table, so he could see the ring on her finger. She wore it while they were on the bus, and although Desire wondered why at the time, she had not asked. ‘We don’t do abortion here,’ he shook his head like he was confirming the truth of his lie to himself, before he added, ‘Not any more—but… this one that oga does not want the baby, we can do it.’
The doctor asked in an English woven with the distinctive Yoruba tonality, ‘Have you paid the nurse?’ and then, without waiting for an answer said, ‘Have you
eaten food?’
‘I haven’t eaten anything this morning?’
‘Okay then. Come. Let’s do the thing quick-quick. Many patients will soon start coming.’
Desire looked around again. There were spider webs in the corners of the walls and she sniffed dust.
The doctor stood up and took her into a small room with a white-metal single bed with stirrups hanging from iron rods, sticking out of its sides. The bed took up most of the space, leaving just enough room for a doctor and one nurse. A nurse entered, she was not the same one that had attended to them earlier. This one had a lower lip that drooped like a flower petal sprinkled with too much water. The nurse stood by the door, carrying a tray from which the doctor picked all kinds of instruments.
‘You have to leave the room,’ the nurse said to Desire.
‘She stays.’ Remilekun said, with a note of finality in her voice. She looked at the doctor, and he did not appear bothered.
The nurse wrung her nose and Desire slid into the room from the little space by the door, throwing a stealthy look at the array of steel instruments in the bowl: Karman syringe; sponge-holding forceps; an instrument with a flat metal loop at the end which she suspected was the curette; sponge; and pencil-shaped dilators of different sizes. All terms her mind had stored from reading all those medical books and pamphlets she had picked up along the way. She was now studying the objects, comparing them to the shapes she remembered from the books. Reading widely made everything in the world familiar. She had a theoretical knowledge of what was to take place. She moved to Remilekun’s side and held her hand in hers.
Desire observed as the doctor placed Remilekun’s legs on the metal loops which were hinged with one half falling away, so that her positioning made her bum hang over the edge and her pubis was in clear view of the doctor. She took a moment to think of all the women who had lain on the bed like Remilekun, for the same purpose but with different reasons. Remilekun tried to shift into a more comfortable position.
The doctor tried to keep up a conversation as he wore his gloves. Desire looked up at the ceiling her friend would face as they performed the procedure. It was a once-white ceiling with filaments of cobwebs hanging down the cracks. A spider dangled from a strand of thread in a corner.
A Small Silence Page 18