An African Affair

by Nina Darnton

  “You go give da general what he like, lady?”

  Lindsay didn’t answer. Her mouth was dry.

  “You go give da general what he want, lady?” the man repeated, pinching the skin under his hand.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “What he wants. Like you said.”

  The man released her inner thigh and put his hand on her knee.

  “You give Babatunde what he want too, yes, lady?” the driver said suddenly. He leered. “You like Babatunde, no? He tell you sad story? Poah boy. But he no want you. He beg at end, but no for you. He beg for die.” The man sneered.

  “We no bad men. We give what he want.” Both men laughed again. The driver put his hand on Lindsay’s breast.

  “Now we go give you what you want and you go give us what we want, yes?”

  Lindsay didn’t answer. Her mind was racing. She wondered if she could get the attention of the squatters or if they would help if she did. She scanned the garage looking for something that might serve as a weapon.

  Suddenly, the driver took his hand off her breast and got out of the car. The second man got out on his side, leaving his door open as he sauntered away to open the garage door. The driver swaggered to the front. She saw him stretch his legs before he got back in with his friend. Lindsay edged closer to the open door of the car.

  “Get out,” the driver said, over his shoulder. “Dat what you want, yes?”

  Lindsay jumped out of the car. She sensed running might trigger a chase response, so she walked quickly, willing herself not to look back. When she got to the corner she turned. The car wasn’t following her.

  She was not sure if the men had really gone, and she kept looking around nervously, half expecting them to pop out at every street corner. Finally, she found an outdoor market with stalls of wilted lettuce and rotten tomatoes. A truck driver had just delivered cases of beer, and she approached him as he climbed back into his cab.

  “Can you give me a ride to Ikoyi?” she asked.

  She read on his face what he saw: a dirty, sweating white woman in an unlikely place, sure to bring him trouble. She wasn’t surprised when he said no.

  “Please,” she said. “Don’t take me to Ikoyi if it’s too far. Just drop me where I can get a cab. I need to get out of here.”

  “That not my lookout.”

  “I know. But I have money.” She rummaged inside her purse and pulled out two hundred naira, waving them at him.

  That stopped him. He reached over and opened the truck door.

  “Get in,” he said. “Where you go in Ikoyi?”

  She gave him the address and climbed in. He didn’t speak to her and she didn’t try to make conversation. She was badly shaken; her body was trembling as though she had caught a chill, but she was angry too, angrier than she had ever been. That bastard Olumide, she thought, he wants the “truth” about this place. That’s exactly what he’s going to get. She knew he expected her to be scared and leave. Well, she was scared, but she wasn’t going to run away.

  She considered informing the embassy, but decided the ambassador would use it to persuade her to leave. James would only point out that he had been afraid this would happen and pressure her to back off. Maureen? Maybe she would tell her, but no, on second thought, she didn’t want to worry her. For the moment, she would confide in no one. But she would have to be more careful. She would hold any potentially dangerous story until she was out of the country.

  When she got home she went straight to her room. The tremor was worse. She curled up on her side and hugged her pillow. After a while, she felt the trembling subside, and finally, in early evening, she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 17

  Lindsay tossed and turned, lost in the shadows of restless dream images. A voice was talking to her but she couldn’t make out the words. She struggled within the dream to hear better and the voice became clearer. “Madam,” she heard. “Please, madam.” Someone was speaking to her. She opened her eyes reluctantly and saw Martin standing in her doorway.

  “Please, madam,” he said again with quiet urgency. “It Eduke; he very sick. You have medicine?”

  She got up quickly, wrapped a robe around herself, and hurried next door to see the child. She found him, whimpering and gagging as he retched convulsively, his small body doubled over. His eyes were glazed, his lips chapped, and his skin ashen. Lindsay immediately thought of cholera, knowing that the open sewers and dirty water in Lagos spread the disease that killed thousands of children each year. They had to get to the hospital as fast as they could.

  “You have medicine?” Martin asked again.

  “My medicine isn’t good enough. We must get help.” She remembered that her car was still incapacitated near the Chinese restaurant. “We have to get a cab and go to the hospital.”

  “It will be faster if we take your car, madam,” Martin said.

  “I know. I don’t have it.”

  “John brought it late last night,” Martin said. “You can drive us?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, with relief. She would have to find out what had happened to John later.

  She climbed in and Martin’s cousin Robert sat beside her. Martin and his wife Pauline scrambled into the back, laying Eduke carefully between them, his head on Pauline’s lap. Lindsay headed for the emergency room at the Lagos Children’s Clinic. It was almost 7 A.M. and the early morning traffic ensnared them in a maddening go-slow. The cars inched along. Occasionally Lindsay heard Martin sigh, a desperate sound of resignation. Eduke whimpered intermittently, but his gagging seemed to subside and he fell, finally, into a deep sleep that was even more frightening.

  An hour passed. The traffic moved slowly forward. Lindsay kept straining to hear Eduke’s shallow breath, faint but still regular. In the next lane, Lindsay caught sight of a ministerial limousine, a few cars ahead of her. She leaned forward to see the number above the plate. It looked like a four.

  Finally, the Peugeot arrived at the clinic, a pathetic three-story structure with peeling white plaster and a tin roof. The limousine pulled in behind them, and a heavyset man in a well-tailored business suit stepped out and headed for the door. Martin carried Eduke, and Lindsay and the others followed them inside. A small waiting area opened onto a large room full of rickety hospital beds. Every bed was occupied. A dozen or so mothers sat with their children on hard-backed chairs against the wall. Some of the mothers slept, their mouths open. Others sat patiently with their sick children, who were wailing or curled listlessly in their laps.

  There was a small commotion around the government official. He must indeed be an important minister, Lindsay thought, judging by the sycophantic fanfare that greeted him. Though others had obviously been waiting unattended for a long time, several hospital employees hurried to see what he needed. Lindsay thought he looked familiar, and as she approached the desk to register Eduke, she suddenly recalled where she had seen him: in the parking lot at the hotel in Ibadan. He was Billy Anikulo, the health minister. It crossed her mind to approach him and ask for help—the intervention of a government minister could do wonders for Eduke’s chances—but she hesitated. This man worked for Olumide and might well have participated in the decision to kidnap her. Instead she turned away, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed. As she turned, she noticed the man who accompanied the official. She was so stunned, she stepped closer and stared. Mike Vale was at the minister’s elbow. She quickly stepped behind a pillar and watched as both men were hustled into a back room by a hospital administrator.

  Pauline and Martin still sat waiting. Finally, Lindsay understood what was needed. Slipping a fifty-naira bill into a stack of papers on the desk, she told the receptionist that Eduke was dying. The woman didn’t look at Lindsay or change her expression but, picking up the bill, walked behind a screen, signaling them to follow her. The woman told Martin to lay Eduke down on a cot and leave. He went out hesitantly. Lindsay didn’t move. The woman ignored her and called over a colleague in a white uniform who examined the boy, pressi
ng his stomach brusquely.

  “Excuse me,” Lindsay said. “Are you a doctor?”

  “The boy has gastroenteritis,” the woman answered, ignoring the question.

  Lindsay was relieved. It didn’t sound too serious.

  The woman tied a rubber tube around Eduke’s arm and looked for a vein to insert an intravenous drip. When she didn’t find one, she slapped his arm, to make a vein stand out, but still didn’t locate one. She called a nurse who shaved the hair near his temples, looking for a place to insert the needle. Eduke opened his eyes. He looked scared. Lindsay wished Pauline or Martin were there, but didn’t want to leave to get them. She held his hand, but he hardly seemed to know her. Meanwhile, the woman was still unable to insert the needle. Eduke’s face was contorted.

  “We need some morphine,” the woman said, “for the pain and to slow down the intestines.”

  “We don’t have it, Doctor,” the nurse answered. “We are waiting for a delivery.”

  “Get some paregoric. Quick.”

  The nurse disappeared and returned with a syringe. She gave Eduke a shot of something in the stomach. Lindsay started to go out to get Pauline. She heard a small gasp and ducked back inside.

  Eduke was lying on the table, totally still. The nurse and doctor had turned away.

  “The child is dead,” the nurse said coldly. Lindsay called after the doctor, who was already leaving.

  “What happened?” she shouted.

  “Gastroenteritis,” the doctor said.

  “But you don’t die of gastroenteritis, do you? Not so fast.”

  “But he had no blood,” the nurse said.

  “No blood? What do you mean ‘no blood’?”

  “He was anemic,” the doctor said, walking off in Martin’s direction. Pauline, seeing the doctor, followed nervously, still not realizing what had happened.

  As soon as Martin saw the doctor he jumped up and waited meekly for her to speak.

  “How long was he sick?” she barked.

  “Since yesterday,” Martin answered.

  “There, you see. You should have brought him earlier,” the doctor said. “It’s your fault. You can come tomorrow to take him away.”

  Martin was confused. “What? Where is he?”

  “He’s dead.” The doctor turned and walked away.

  Pauline fell into Martin’s arms. Martin pounded the wall just once, hard, with both his fists. Then he walked behind the screen to see his son, followed by his wife. Lindsay could hear Pauline’s loud keening and Martin’s soft sobbing. Then Martin collected himself, led Pauline from behind the screen, and headed straight for the door. But before he got there, he collapsed onto the floor. Lindsay rushed to help him up. He could barely walk. His cousin supported him, and Lindsay ran back inside and found the doctor.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “I heard you say you had no morphine.” The doctor stopped in her tracks. “Would that have saved him?” Lindsay persisted.

  The doctor looked tired and wary. “Maybe.”

  “But how could you not have morphine? How is that possible?”

  “We ordered it. We paid for it. It didn’t arrive. That’s all I know.” The doctor turned and walked away.

  Lindsay stood for a moment, trying to understand. An orderly who was wiping the beds with disinfectant watched her.

  “Dey go for steal it, madam,” he said softly.

  “Who? Who steals it?”

  But the orderly just shrugged.

  All morning, Lindsay couldn’t think of anything but Eduke. His three-year-old smile, the shy way he thanked her when she gave him a piece of chocolate, the big wondering brown eyes as he followed his brothers and sisters around the courtyard, his curious questions when she read him books. She remembered taking his family’s picture with a Polaroid shortly after she arrived and how he had stared, fascinated, as the image magically took shape. And now he was dead. Why was this country so goddamn cruel?

  Every day was hotter than the one before. The humidity was so high it was hard to breathe. But there were worse things than the weather to deal with. She drove Martin and an elder from his home village back to the hospital to retrieve—and bury—Eduke’s body. Pauline stayed at home preparing the mourning ceremony.

  When they arrived at the hospital, they were directed to the morgue out back. Built of cinder blocks, it was nothing more than a big cold room with a metal table on one wall and a dirty white tiled floor centering on a drain. Lying face-up on the tile, unprotected and uncovered, was Eduke, still wearing his gray cotton pants and blue T-shirt.

  Lindsay sucked in her breath. She looked at Martin, who seemed about to faint. As Lindsay reached out to steady him, an orderly entered, blocking the exit. Martin said he had come to collect his child’s body for burial. The orderly shrugged and said he didn’t know about that. Lindsay stared at him in disbelief. Then she knew. She could hardly believe it, despite everything she had seen in this country, but when she reached into her bag and pulled out a twenty-naira bill, the orderly grabbed it and disappeared. A moment later, he returned carrying a small wooden box that looked like an orange crate. He picked Eduke up and tried to force his body into the too-small crate. Martin turned abruptly and left the room. Outside, he pounded his fists helplessly against the wall, not once, this time, but over and over till his hands were bleeding. Then he walked back into the morgue and collected his son.

  At the nearby graveyard, they were denied entry until they handed over another twenty naira. When the grave digger ignored them, Lindsay simply pulled out another twenty, after which he strolled over to dig the shallow grave.

  There was no time for the Catholic family to get a priest. Martin and the village elder lowered the small crate into the ground. Martin said something in Igbo that Lindsay didn’t understand. He looked at Lindsay, gesturing that it was her turn to speak.

  “Sleep well, sweet baby,” she mumbled, fighting tears. And so it was over.

  They were silent on the way home. When they arrived, Lindsay went inside, turned on the fan, and lay on her bed, watching it turn slowly. She was waiting for James. When he arrived about fifteen minutes later, she poured gin and tonics and told him the story.

  “I’m going to write about this,” she said. “I want people to know how corrosive corruption can be, how much harder it makes every aspect of life, how much worse the pain is when the system consistently turns against you.”

  James put his arm around her. “That’s always your reaction, write the story, as if telling the story has some healing power. But the medicine only heals you, Lindsay. You feel better once you write it. You even have the illusion that you’ve done something good. But that’s bullshit. It’s self-indulgent. What difference will telling this story make to Martin or Pauline or Eduke? Readers will sigh and turn the page.”

  It was as if he’d hit her. She tried to shield herself and strike back at the same time.

  “No, you’re wrong, James. I have to believe that people are capable of reacting, of helping, of trying to create change.”

  She thought of telling him about her terrifying run-in with Olumide’s thugs, to show him how strongly she believed in the power of telling the truth. But she decided against it. It wouldn’t help and it might complicate things. She sighed and said softly, “You’re so cynical. That’s the easy way. Your attitude is ‘life is terrible, nothing changes.’ That’s just one more excuse for doing nothing. If people don’t know what’s going on, they can’t protest. Change is prevented by ignorance, not inertia. People do what they can. I try to end the ignorance. It’s just a small, not very important kind of help, I know that, but I can do it, and I do it well, and that’s better than doing nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, Lindsay. But I’m afraid I don’t believe in changing the world. I don’t think it can be done. I want to take care of myself and the people I love. That’s hard enough. And I try to be of some help to whoever crosses my path. We should go to the ceremony for Eduke. We should reimburse Martin for
any expenses he had. We should help him educate his other children. I don’t believe in anything grander than that.”

  They could hear Martin and Pauline’s many friends and relatives arriving at the compound, crowding Martin’s quarters and spilling into the garden. The scent of the simmering cassavas and spices was already starting to permeate the air.

  “I’m afraid we are going to have to agree to disagree on this for now,” Lindsay said, peeking out the window.

  Preparations for the gathering in honor of Eduke were well under way. One of Martin’s cousins brought a goat to be sacrificed. Others carried crates of beer. Lindsay knew that the party would be given to appease Eduke’s ghost so he wouldn’t come back to strike down his family. Pauline, Martin, and many guests had rubbed white powder on their faces and marked the doors of their quarters with white paint. It saddened Lindsay to think that little Eduke, having joined the dead, was transformed from a beloved child into a fearsome spirit.

  She told James she was exhausted and needed to sleep. She did not add that she wanted to be rested enough to write Eduke’s story before going to his mourning ceremony the following night.

  CHAPTER 18

  By the next morning, Lindsay recognized that her first impulse to file a scorching story about Eduke’s death was rash. She would write it now while the details were still sharp and her outrage white hot, but she wouldn’t send it until she was safely out of the country. She sat at her computer and made a couple of false starts. By the time she finished it was 12:30, the time the foreign press gathered at the Ikoyi Club for a weekly session of drinks and gossip. Maureen had left a few days earlier to do a story about oil production and Lindsay hoped she might come back in time to join her there.

  Unsubstantiated gossip in Lagos often turned out to be useful. Brian Randolph, the London Times man, was due back in town after a week’s leave in London. He may have picked up some information from British government sources at home.