Ogadinma rubbed her belly as her baby moved and didn’t bother about the chaos around her: Tobe had encountered another misfortune. He had borrowed money from Aunty Ngozi to import powdered milk from Cotonou, a product whose importation had been banned by the military government. She had told him it was a bad idea, but as usual, he did what he wanted. And on the morning he travelled to Cotonou, she sat in her bed and stared at the moving form of her baby. It was no longer the fluttering or the slight pokes below her navel; her baby was moving, shifting and distorting the shape of her belly. Sometimes, the movements went on for minutes, as if a rat went up her butt, sliding from one side to the other.
This had become her favourite pastime, the activity that kept her mind away from the trauma she had endured. Her due date was near and the idea that she would soon breastfeed her baby cleansed her mind of dark thoughts and filled her with renewed strength.
Then Tobe came home in the evening, sweating and panting.
‘My consignment has been impounded,’ he told her after she let him in. She looked at him. There was so much she wanted to say to him, things she knew would set the house on fire and cause him to harm her again. So she held her tongue. As he rushed into the parlour, she knew he was going to call Aunty Ngozi.
‘Sister, something terrible has happened,’ she heard him say.
She went inside and found him hunched over the telephone as he told Aunty Ngozi everything that had happened: he had bought the cartons of milk and chartered a truck to ship them to Lagos. At the border, they were accosted by immigration officers and soldiers who took money from him before they let them pass. But they ran into trouble at Badagry when another set of soldiers demanded more money, and when he couldn’t give them the amount requested, they towed the truck to their office.
‘I don’t have such money, Sister,’ he said. He rubbed his face. ‘Could you help me raise the amount? I must get the truck soon before it gets lost. I hear they hold secret auctions at their office.’
He held the phone against his ear for a long time, and then he put it down and stood up. ‘I am going out,’ he said.
He did not tell Ogadinma where he was going, and she did not ask. She did not feel sorry for him. Rage, instead, rose to her chest.
He did not come home that night, and when she sat down to have dinner all by herself, she had a steaming bowl of nsala soup filled with large pieces of meat and mangala fish. She drank a sweating bottle of Maltina, and picked her teeth with a toothpick. Then she leaned back on her chair, rubbed her satisfyingly full stomach, and thought of all those times she had served him large portions and ate very little. She wished she could go back in time and do things differently. She read The Joys of Motherhood again, without any interruption, and the words did not smudge this time. That night, she sang as she showered, and when she lay down to sleep, she ignored the irritating, tender part of herself that told her to call Ugonna’s home and ask if they knew about Tobe’s whereabouts. This new misfortune was entirely his fault, and so she felt no compassion for him. She felt no need to carry any emotional burden on his behalf.
But it was only when she woke in the morning that she became fully concerned about his sudden disappearance. And so, by noon, when he had yet to come home or call, she went to search for him at Uncle Ugonna’s house.
Uncle Ugonna was eating when she arrived.
‘Ha, Ogadinma, this one you and your belly came to see us. I hope you woke well?’ he asked.
‘Good afternoon, Uncle,’ she greeted him.
‘Afụlụ m gi. Come and sit down.’ He waved her over to the empty chair opposite him, pushed his plate aside and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You have come because of the problems your husband is having,’ he said.
‘He hasn’t come home since last night.’
‘I know. He and your aunt have been working to get the truck from the soldiers. They came home very late last night, that’s why he slept here.’
‘Have they recovered the truck?’
A tight smile appeared on Uncle Ugonna’s face and he shook his head. ‘Even after they paid what the officers asked for. You know, the country is getting filled with criminals all over again, like it was during Shagari. Yes, you impounded the banned goods. Why are you then requesting for money from the owners? And when they paid the amount you requested, why are you still refusing to keep your end of the bargain?’ He made a clucking sound. ‘Mana, let me ask you o, do you even put your family in the hands of God? Do you pray at all?’
‘Uncle, what I don’t understand is why everyone must hold me responsible for Tobe’s decisions.’
‘What do you mean?’
She had spoken too hotly, and her words had come out too rashly. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Tobe is too stubborn.’
Uncle Ugonna moved closer to the end of his seat. ‘What did he do?’
‘He makes too many bad decisions. All of this would not have happened if he listened to me.’
And then she told him everything, how Tobe had ignored her worries about Ifeanyi, how he had dismissed her caution against going to Cotonou.
Uncle Ugonna arched his head to an angle, in a way to show he was considering her words. ‘He made a mistake,’ he said finally. ‘I will speak to him.’
‘Uncle, you must not tell him I complained to you.’
‘I know how to talk to him, don’t worry. A man cannot claim he knows it all. That’s why we marry and start a family, so we have people who become part of us and even influence our decisions.’
Tobe and Aunty Ngozi came in then, both drenched in sweat. Ogadinma greeted them but Tobe ignored her and Aunty Ngozi only grunted and went into her room, muttering something about taking a shower.
‘My in-law,’ Uncle Ugonna said. ‘How did it go?’
Tobe sat beside Uncle Ugonna, and Ogadinma decided to give them some privacy.
As she left the room, she heard Tobe say the officers had refused to release the truck until they paid extra money.
She did talk to him when he emerged later and did not hasten to meet up with his strides when they trekked to the junction to board a bus home. He gazed out of the window all through the ride. When they got home, she climbed the stairs behind him, watching his tense back, how he took the stairs two at a time. She had just stepped into the parlour when he locked the door with the key, before whipping around to face her. Sweaty patches had appeared under his arms, staining his white t-shirt brown.
‘What did you tell your uncle about me?’ he asked her.
She swallowed. ‘Eh?’
He approached her slowly, menacingly. ‘I said, what did you tell your uncle about me and my business?’
‘I didn’t tell him anything,’ she said. She backed away from him, but was soon pinned against the wall.
‘So, you are lying to me to my face?’ he was saying.
He grabbed her by the neck, slammed her back against the wall. Pain shot up her waist. His hands tightened around her throat. She kicked out. He was speaking in a sputter of Igbo. She could not breathe. She was thinking of how she could protect her baby, before her eyes drifted shut.
When she came round shortly after, Tobe’s fists were slamming into her face, against her neck, her chest. She curled on the floor, she held her stomach. Perhaps if she held it tighter, only her body would be hurt and her baby would be all right. Tobe was still punching, kicking and swearing. The pain was raw, pulsing. A fire, burning and licking, started in her waist. Warm wetness rushed down from between her legs, before she shut her eyes.
When she woke up, there was a breathing fire all around her. Tobe was looking down at her. He was crying, his mouth moving in speech, but she could not hear him. She could not reach for her belly because her hands seemed as if they were restrained by vice grips. She could not feel the movement of her baby. She could not feel anything at all. A woman in white appeared and pulled Tobe away.
Then she was moving. There was the squeaky sound from the contraption carrying her. Tobe was walking with her, looking down at her, tears streaming down his face, plopping on her body. She was wheeled into a brightly lit room and nurses lifted her and placed her on a softer bed whose sheet was as thick as a tarpaulin. She could not move, she could only feel. A nurse, wielding a syringe, shot the contents into the IV hanging from the pole attached to her bed. Her mind grew foggy, as if she was trapped on the streets of Kano at the peak of harmattan, when dust swirled in a thick breeze, veiling everything in a gauze of dust, until you could not see the person standing just a few feet from you. And then she blacked out.
She woke from a deep sleep. The room was narrow, the walls painted blue, and the low-hanging ceiling was a blinding white. Her body felt sore and strange at the same time. Thankfully, the window was wide open, and she stared outside at the sky that wore the purest colour of blue.
A nurse came inside carrying a bundle wrapped in a blue-and-white blanket. ‘Ị mụlụ ife ogonogo, a baby with a penis.’ She smiled. ‘You have a baby boy.’ She approached the bed. ‘Do you want to hold him? He is asleep now.’
She looked at the woman and the baby she was holding. How did she give birth and didn’t know when it happened? It was only then it occurred to her to feel her stomach. ‘I have a son?’
The nurse smiled again and placed the bundle on her chest, turning him so that Ogadinma could stare at his face without having to lift her head off the pillows. For a long time, she looked at the puffy face with the pink gums, the perfect chin and the ears that were shades darker than his body, proof that he would grow to be as dark as her or his father. She waited for the warmth that was supposed to flood her chest and stomach, the beginning of the bond between mother and child. But she felt nothing.
‘I will put him in his cot,’ the nurse said, taking the baby as if she knew that Ogadinma wanted some distance from it.
‘How did I give birth to him?’ she asked the nurse, who gave her a sad, tight smile, and placed the baby in his cot, before coming to her bedside.
‘You had an operation,’ she said. ‘It was urgent, and thank God, you and the baby are safe.’ She made to touch Ogadinma, but then put her hand down. ‘I will leave you to rest now.’
Tobe and Aunty Ngozi arrived shortly afterwards. Aunty Ngozi dropped the bag she was carrying and rushed to her bedside. ‘You are awake. Thank God,’ she said. ‘Kedụ?’
Ogadinma did not respond. Nor did she look at Tobe, who came and sat by her bedside and held her hand. Instead, she stared out of the window, at the azure sky and the migrating birds dotting the blue like splotches of charcoal on a bright cloth.
‘I am so sorry, Nwunye m,’ Tobe said, his voice cracking. ‘It was the work of the devil. I am so sorry.’
‘I want to sleep,’ Ogadinma said. She was startled by the calm in her voice. It was what she always wanted to be: fearless. ‘Please go. I want to sleep,’ she said.