Nights of the Creaking Bed

by Toni Kan

  He watches his friends as they sing and dance and scream. There is food and drink aplenty and everyone is in a happy mood. He watches the girls. Some will get pregnant this evening, after the drink and food are gone and boys and girls couple like dogs on heat. In a year, there will be babies for those who don’t abort the pregnancies.

  Some of his friends, those whose parents can afford it, will go on to university while the rest will get married and live out their lives in the provincial ambience of the village, their dreams turning to cobwebs as they slowly become all they hate in their parents.

  Bunor takes a drag on the joint, flings it away and rises to his feet.

  ‘What’s gonna be is gonna be, there’s nothing to do about it,’ he sings as he joins his friends in the revelry.

  ‘Don’t go to the police, you hear me?’ the fat guy says as he slides behind the steering wheel. ‘We are not stealing your car, we are just borrowing it for a few hours.

  ‘When you pick it up, check under the passenger seat. There’ll be something there for you. Then, drive it straight home. Don’t go to the police because we will be watching you,’ the moustachioed guy says as he gets into the passenger seat.

  Bunor climbs the stairs and walks like a zombie into the bedroom, without acknowledging his wife and children.

  ‘If I had known, I would have washed the car in the compound,’ he says to himself, not realising he has spoken out loud.

  ‘What’s wrong with washing it outside?’ his wife asks and he bursts into tears.

  ‘Bunor, what’s wrong? Did something happen?’ Angie kneels and cradles his tearful face in her hands.

  ‘They took the car.’

  ‘Who took the car?’ she asks, and not waiting for an answer, runs to the window. She looks outside and a dry patch surrounded by wet ground is the only evidence that a car had been parked there. She screams.

  ‘Bunor, who took our car?’

  After Bunor has mastered his emotions and tells her the story, she says they must let the police know.

  ‘But they warned me not to. They said they were just borrowing it.’

  ‘And you believe them. They don’t want you to go to the police so that by the time you finally make a report, the car will be far gone. We have to report it, o.’

  ‘Angie, they said four hours. Let us wait.’

  ‘In four hours, the car could be in Onitsha,’ she says. ‘Okay, if you don’t want to make a formal report, let’s go and see Nelly’s husband. You know he is a policeman.’

  Nelly’s husband, Ikenna, fat and big-bellied like most police officers, is picking his teeth when they enter.

  ‘Beer or stout?’ he asks, as Bunor settles into a seat andAngie disappears into the kitchen where her friend is doing the dishes.

  ‘Nothing for now. I have come with a big problem.’

  ‘Then you’ve come to the right place. The police is your friend, you know,’ he says, laughing.

  ‘So, what is the problem?’

  Bunor tells him what has happened and about the warning.

  When he is done, Nelly’s husband is snoring gently, the toothpick bobbing between his quivering lips.

  ‘Ikenna!’ Bunor screams and the fat man jumps.

  ‘Sorry, my brother,’ Ikenna says. ‘I came back this morning from a useless night patrol. Anyway, they gave you the right advice and you should obey it. Don’t make a police report. No need for that. Just go where they asked you to and pick up your car. If it’s not there you can call me. Go home and rest.’

  Bunor exchanges looks with his wife who has rejoined them.

  ‘You say I shouldn’t make a report?’

  ‘Ehen, that’s what I said. Go and pick up your car like they asked you to, and thank your God.’

  ‘3 o’clock. Don’t be late they o!’ the moustachioed guy says as he zooms off.

  When he realises that the engine is running like they said it would be, Bunor reaches under the passenger’s seat and fingers a bag. He pulls out the bag and inside are wads of hundred naira notes. He pushes the bag back, looks around to see whether anyone is watching, gets in behind the wheel and slips the gearstick into Drive.

  ‘There is a bloodstained kaftan and money in the car,’ his wife is saying to him. ‘Maybe they killed somebody and somebody could have got the car number. Go and make a report. Tell them the car was stolen and now has been returned. You don’t have to talk about the money.’

  Bunor tells her to hush but she persists until, worn out, he asks her to come with him to the police station. When they get there, he asks her to wait in the car.

  It is dusk and the station is busy. Wives, siblings and friends of the detained are massed outside bearing food, changes of clothing, medicine and other essentials. Bunor pushes through until he gets to the counter, where three policemen are seated.

  ‘Good evening,’ he begins. ‘I…’

  The uniformed officer sitting in front of him is the moustachioed man who borrowed his car earlier in the day. He looks at Bunor with eyes that have narrowed into angry slits.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to stay at home?’ he hisses. ‘Didn’t I tell you to take what we left for you and go home?’ Bunor stares, unable to speak.

  ‘Get out of here!’ the man barks and Bunor is startled, but still he doesn’t move because there is a puddle at his feet and his trousers are wet and warm and clinging to his legs.

  Sad Eyes

  She had sad eyes with a face that was made for crying. But you knew at once she was a girl who had taught herself not to cry.

  Stella had a look that made you feel guilty even when you had done nothing wrong. She was like an open door to your conscience.

  I met Stella when I was young and carefree. I had just found a job that paid well, and even though she was a pretty girl who made my mind bubble with naughty thoughts, I doused my desire with a basinful of selfishness.

  My answer was “no” to a question I didn’t dare ask. I knew that if I let myself go, I’d fall truly, madly and deeply for her. So I steeled my heart like a Spartan’s. And Stella knew, and did nothing, and it was this nothing she did that made me sick with guilt: that look she gave me which, though silent, levelled a million charges against me.

  We met on the creaky, half-lit staircase of our computer school. I was late. She was early and we were both going in opposite directions.

  ‘Shit!’ I said, as the lights went off.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, disappointment colouring her voice.

  ‘Hold on. There’s someone here,’ I mumbled, waving a hand in front of me like a roach’s antenna. It fell on one of her breasts and I withdrew it immediately.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Why? Haven’t you touched a woman’s breast before?’

  ‘Well…em…’ I stuttered.

  ‘I embarrassed you, abi? Okay, tell me. Are you wearing a red tie and a white shirt today?’

  ‘What?’ I asked, a funny feeling creeping up inside me.

  ‘You heard me.’ She had a rumour of laughter in her voice.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, stepping back.

  ‘Stella. And you?’

  ‘You know me. You know what I wear and you can see in the dark.’

  ‘Yes, but not your name.’

  ‘Osa,’ I told her.

  ‘You’re Bendel?’

  ‘Edo,’ I corrected.

  ‘Same thing. So, about the tie?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a shade of red,’ I admitted.

  The staircase was dark, stuffy and low. Whoever built it was short and didn’t care. My first week there, I bumped my head four times.

  ‘You’re moving back,’ she said, her voice staying my feet.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘If you keep your focus you can see in the dark.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By focusing.’ She laughed a deep, throaty laugh that belonged to a man.

  ‘I laugh like a man,’ she said gauging my thoughts. ‘Alright.’ My p
en was ready to stab out if she approached me.

  ‘Put down your pen. You might hurt me,’ she said and swept past me.

  I followed, crouching low, as I gobbled up the steps with feet made ravenous by curiosity. I burst out downstairs and she was there, smiling.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her smile spreading. A ray of light from a generator fell directly on her face.

  ‘It was spooky up there,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘How can you see in the dark?’

  ‘I concentrate.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘The dark. Once you do that, everything else takes shape.’

  I relaxed a bit and leaned on the fence and she said, ‘Take care. There could be scorpions.’

  ‘Yeah, in Lagos,’ I mocked.

  ‘I killed one yesterday and I’ll kill one tonight. Stay still.’ Then she reached out, flicked something off my shirt and stepped on it.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, my mouth going dry.

  ‘A scorpion. Here, take a look.’

  I looked. The scorpion’s upper body was crushed but its tail still moved.

  ‘How did you know?’ I asked, fear nibbling at the edges of my mind.

  ‘I can smell snakes and scorpions.’

  ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘I can tell colours with my fingers.’

  She could do all these things and much more but she could not raise enough money to pay her fees. We were taking a computer appreciation course. A few days after our strange encounter, she walked out before our Excel test and I followed her.

  ‘Why are you out here?’ I asked.

  ‘Go and write your test,’ she said, her eyes hooded behind long and thick eyelashes.

  ‘I will, but why are you here?’

  ‘A few things are better left untold,’ she said, but I prised words out of her like a miner feeling in the muck to find the nuggets nestling within.

  I paid her fees and learned that she was head of a home, the only girl in a family of four. Her parents’ death had made her father and mother to three younger brothers.

  ‘I work. I earn money but it’s never enough. My brothers fall sick, break neighbours’ louvres and sprain their ankles when they play ball. I need help but I don’t know where to find it,’ she told me one night in a restaurant.

  ‘You don’t have a boyfriend?’

  ‘I’ve had a couple. But they get scared when they learn of my burden. You don’t have a girlfriend. She left you,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You wear it on your sleeve. Your pain is raw. Let it heal.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Learn to love again.’

  I took her advice. I found love again. But I did not choose Stella.

  Now, chastened by a new and terrible knowledge, I ask myself, ‘Why didn’t I?’

  She made you think of marriage the moment you set eyes on her, but how could I marry her and three others? I was young. I had a brother to see through school and a life to live. I wasn’t ready to be weighed down with excess baggage. So one night, after we got back from the hospital where doctors had stitched her brother’s cut, I fled. The boy had a nasty wound and had lost a lot of blood. I helped carry him to the only bed in the room and then, after we had made him comfortable, I told her I had to leave.

  Tears stood in her eyes as she said thanks. ‘Here.’ I offered her a wad of notes.

  ‘You’ve done enough,’ she said, refusing the money.

  ‘Take it. You’ll need it.’ I swallowed back the lump that rose to my throat.

  ‘Don’t talk about need,’ she said, forcing herself not to cry. I let the money drop as I walked to the car, kicked it, and drove off. I left that night and never went back.

  In the six months we’d been friends, she’d made no demands. She had taken what I had offered and thanked me. She had never asked to know my place, even though she took me to her own home, a small, one-room affair that was poor but clean.

  Two nights ago, I ran into her brother as I drove my wife and infant son home from the hospital.

  ‘How is Stella?’ I asked, wondering at the lines tough life had etched on his young face.

  ‘She died two years ago. She was found in a ditch. Her private parts gone.’

  The Phone Call Goodnight

  The phone rang. I did not pick it up.

  I knew who was calling: my husband. He was on his way home, five minutes away actually, and he was calling to let me know so I could ask the house help to go and open the gate for him. That was our routine.

  ‘Fidelia!’ I called out as I depressed the mute button on the remote control to get the volume of the television set down. ‘Oya, go and open the gate for Uncle,’ I said, without even looking at her as I went back to watching Desperate Housewives.

  Then my phone rang again. I reached for the remote control and handset both at once. The caller ID told me it was my husband. I pressed MUTE with my left hand and then pressed ANSWER with my right.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, with all the sauciness I could muster. He must have met a friend or neighbour and was calling me to ask the house help to wait.

  ‘Pray for …’ I heard my husband say, then I heard him scream.

  ‘Ndu! Ndu!’ I screamed, but there was no answer. There were voices now. Loud and angry voices. And my husband was begging.

  ‘Please, please. I have money in the boot. Please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘Shut up,’ a voice said. Then I heard a slap and my husband’s voice saying, ‘Take it easy, please.’

  There was another slap and someone was saying, ‘Move to the back seat. Move. Now!’

  It was all happening too fast. One minute I was watching Eva Longoria and awaiting my husband’s return. The next minute everything had changed and I was in a nightmare world.

  I heard screeching tyres; then there was silence, but this silence wasn’t the absence of sound, it was the silence of amplified fear, of raw and primal fear manifested as panting, the deep wheezing kind of breathing that spells fear in capital letters.

  Holding my phone to my ear, I ran downstairs without my slippers. The gate was wide open and the house help was standing there, her left hand shielding her eyes as she peered into the distance to see whether Ndu’s car was coming.

  I ran past her, out into the road and looked. There was no car.

  ‘Did you see Uncle’s car?’ I asked, panting.

  ‘Yes. I saw him talking to three men; then they just turned and went back. I am waiting for him.’

  The night was suddenly alive with danger. My husband was still panting in my ear. I could hear his fear, smell it, just like I could smell the acrid odour of burning rubber that still hung in the air.

  As I stood with Fidelia at the gate, I heard my husband’s voice again.

  ‘Pally, I said I have money in the boot. It’s over sixty thousand naira. You can take it with the car. Please let me drop here, I…’ He didn’t finish the sentence before I heard him cry out and then he was groaning.

  ‘I told you before. SHUT UP!’ That was when I began to cry.

  When Ndu left the house that morning, we hadn’t kissed each other goodbye. I had been angry with him from the night before.

  ‘Do not let the sun go down on your anger,’ he had said, sing-songy in the bathroom as he showered in readiness for work. I ignored him and concentrated on getting the children ready for school.

  Our quarrel was silly but one you can appreciate if you are us. I was not exactly angry. What I needed was attention. Ndu had been busy on a project and had forgotten to pick up a pair of shoes his colleague had found for me. With size 43 feet, buying shoes can be a nightmare. So, whenever I see a pair that fits, I snatch them up. Ndu’s colleague, thinking I didn’t want them anymore, had sold the shoes to someone else. I was still sulking.

  ‘I will pay for two,’ Ndu told me as he tried to slip his hand underneath my short nightgown when we were in bed.

>   ‘Stop,’ I said, mock-seriously, slapping his hand away.

  ‘Give a man some,’ he said, as his palm covered my left breast.

  ‘Stop it or I’ll go to the children’s room.’

  ‘Ok, if that’s what you want, but I thought we could talk about this without fighting,’ Ndu said, a trace of anger creeping into his voice. ‘I’ve told you I will buy you two pairs. Don’t worry yourself about how I am going to find them.’

  Ndu waited for me to say something, to signal that it was okay, that we could go on and make love, but I just lay there breathing evenly, my back turned to him.

  I heard his loud exhalation of air and then he patted his pillows and slept.

  I was up before him the next day and I was laying out the children’s lunch packs in the kitchen when he came and grabbed me from the back and I felt his hardness digging into my buttocks.

  ‘The kids will be late,’ I said, pushing him away.

  ‘Let them be,’ he said, reaching for me again.

  ‘Then we’ll have to pay a fine,’ I said, zipping up their backpacks.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ Ndu said, but I pushed him away and went to see to the children who were in the bathroom with the house help.

  When I came back, he was in the shower and pretending to sing in his husky voice. I hid behind the closet door and laughed softly.

  ‘Take the left turn. LEFT!’ a voice snapped. ‘There’s a police checkpoint in front.’

  There was silence for a while and then I heard Ndu’s voice pleading and telling them again that he had money in the boot.

  ‘This man, we heard you before. If we want the money we will take it. Just keep quiet and let us do our job.’

  There was that same silence again, the one that did not exclude sound but was a diminution of sound and the amplification of fear.

  In Igbo language, we call it Osondu: the race for one’s life. In English that would translate to “fight or flight”. That night, as I stood outside our gate, my phone to my ear, my eyes scanning the road for signs of a car I knew was not there, I felt my heart pumping, the blood roaring in my ears, thoughts of fight and flight buzzing in my head.