Somehow, Adah managed to get home. The journey had taken her such a long time, with a rest here and a sit-down there. She rang the bell because, in her hurry to leave Francis, she had forgotten her key. She scolded herself for this. She was always forgetting her door key in England. In Africa she seldom carried one: your door was always open. In the afternoon, people would all be out on their verandas, talking and eating sugarcane, coconut or bananas. In England people locked themselves inside; they made a paradise of their living-rooms, because they didn’t stay out a lot, not like they do in Africa. Francis was always reminding her to take her key whenever she went out; one day Mrs Noble might be in one of her moods and refuse to open the front door for her. What would she do then? She would have to stay out and freeze. Just like that Lot’s stupid wife who did not do what she was told but kept looking back all the time, and was turned into a big lump of salt. That lump must have been a big one. Did people make soup with that type of salt, salt made of a woman? Eerr, it would be nasty salt, that. She was happy that she was not born in Sodom and Gomorrah.
She rang the bell again, this time pressing it long and hard. She did not care now if it annoyed Mrs Noble or Mr Noble or even Francis. She did not care any more. What she did care about was Francis getting annoyed and appearing in his cheap linen pyjamas, with the baggy trousers and his thing in it swinging this way and that way because he had no underpants on. Adah prayed to God to inspire Francis to remember to put on his woollen dressing-gown. The dressing-gown fitted well; it was new, for he had bought it here in England. But the pyjamas, though they had a “Made in Great Britain” label, were bought in Lagos. Adah wondered who told them in Britain that people in Lagos could do without superior things. She remembered looking at some of the biscuits Mrs Noble was giving Kimmy, her black dog. She had touched the biscuits and, had it not been for the fact that people were watching her, she would have tasted one. Were those not the very same type of biscuits sold to people in Africa, and were those not the very ones her Pa and her uncles used to bring for her and her brother Boy from the army barracks when the war was over? Anyhow, they had not died; they had even thrived, for those hard, dry sugarless biscuits were good exercise for their teeth when they were kids. Did they still sell such biscuits now in Lagos, when the devils had taken hold of the Japanese and they were pouring luxury foods and articles into Lagos at two a penny?
She prayed harder now, because up the road she saw two women riding madly on two grey bicycles checking the numbers of the houses. She saw their black shapeless coats and black hats. Their shoes were black and shapeless too. Just like men’s shoes they were. Adah guessed that they were the midwives coming to help her deliver her baby. Mistakenly they passed her, but Adah did not call them, for that would give her a few minutes in which to ring the bell once more and to tell Francis to cover himself up with the woollen dressing-gown if he was still in his wrinkled pyjamas. Her prayers were answered, for Francis came down, hasty in his anger, but he had not only taken off the linen pyjamas, he was dressed for the day in his grey flannel trousers, cream coloured shirt and his pale green cardigan with a criss-cross pattern on it. Just as he was about to open his little Chinese mouth to ask her what it was she thought she was doing ringing the bell like that when she was supposed to carry her key like a talisman all the time, the two midwives realised their mistake, and wheeled their grey bicycles, cheering themselves like two children who had discovered a hidden treasure. They did not mount their bicycles, but pushed them along, the chains making sounds like “tuk, tuk, tuk”. The two owners were grinning from ear to ear as they trotted along their bicycles beside them like lame horses. One of the midwives was English; the superior air was unmistakable. Her hair was white, at least that part of it that had escaped from under the black hat. She was bigboned, in her forties and had a determined look. The other woman was her assistant, younger and foreign. She could be Japanese or Chinese, because she had a pair of those peculiar eyes that seemed to be sunk into people’s heads. The young woman had a face as round as a perfect O. Her mouth and nose were too small for her face.
The grin left the faces of the two women as soon as they realised that she was Mrs Obi.
“Can’t you read English?” asked the older midwife with the white hair. It dawned on Adah that, to the big midwife, if you couldn’t read or speak English, then you were illiterate. Adah did not want to be regarded as an illiterate, so she told her that she could. Then the big midwife with white hair and authoritative air asked her why then had she not called them sooner? Had Adah not read the instructions that she was to call her at the onset of pains? What did she think she was doing, being so bloody clever?
“Rook, rook, she’s breeding,” gasped the young nurse with the face like an O.
Adah tried to puzzle out what this statement could mean. Yes, she was breeding, definitely. She was having her third baby, but everyone knew that. Why should the nurse make so much noise about it? If she were not breeding, she would not have called them in the first place.
The big midwife who had probably worked with her assistant for some time understood her perfectly. For she went on: “That’s what I mean. Can’t you see that you are bleeding profusely? Come on, up to bed.”
Did “breeding” mean bleeding for the Japanese nurse, when she said “rook”, did she mean “look”? Adah was learning.
They went on examining her, digging into her. One finger, two fingers, three fingers; on and on they went, talking in low voices in their special code, or so it seemed to Adah. Her pains did not get more acute, but all of a sudden she could take no more. Francis, who caused it all, standing there staring, like a pig’s head at the butcher’s, standing there at the foot of the bed, just like a referee impatiently waiting for fair play. Adah remembered then that she had read or heard of husbands who became panicky and worried in case their wives died. But not Francis. He was sure Adah would live. To him Adah was immortal. She just had to be there, bearing his children, working for him, taking his beatings, listening to his sermons.
The room started going round and round in all the colours of the rainbow. Francis had now turned into Lucifer His wicked eyes were glazed as if he wore badly fixed contact-lenses, he was wearing a robe of fire, he had horns bigger and more complicated than those of a stag, and his swords were emitting flames. He was telling her that she was being punished for not waiting to read The Truth Shall Make You Free. Her running away to the doctor woman was causing her all this pain. Then the voices of the two women floated in … one finger, two fingers … then she heard the word “dilated” or “dilation” used over and over again. Then somebody covered her nose and mouth with some rubber stuff. So they were gassing her … Francis’s voice kept on and on, counting down like the persistent bells of death. So this was death, this was what it felt like …
She could not have the baby … Too big for her, poor thing. Then in came Francis again. If she had not interfered with his pleasures with Trudy, if she had been a good wife, a virtuous woman whose price was above the rubies….
She heard the bells, the ambulance bells. But they jingled as if they were Peter’s bunch of keys to heaven telling her that she could only hear the jingles of the keys of heaven, but she would never go there. She was going to her Lucifer husband with the horns of fire. Somebody, two men or even three, were lifting her onto something. She opened her eyes; they were descending the creaky, Noble stairs.
Then she saw Vicky, clutching at Mrs Noble’s breast, his little face confused. Adah saw the fat cheeks, the pathetic baby eyes, and prayed to God to send her back whole to her children. She wanted to call out to Mrs Noble to tell her to wipe Vicky’s running nose, to tell her to pull Titi’s pants up, because they were coming down - the elastic was slack and she had forgotten to put in a new piece. She could not. Her mind was talking, but her mouth could not. Those ambulance men in black suits had her all wrapped in flaming red blankets, and they were hurrying her. The voice of the big midwife was urging them on….
/> Adah sank back into the world of dreams.
The dreams were like before. Trouble. She could not run to her husband for help because he was still carrying that sword of fire. She could not see Peter with the keys, but she could hear the bells ringing, ringing. Sometimes she heard the voice of the big nurse, saying, “Hurry, hurry, we must hurry.” Then the voice of the little nurse said, “Good Rord.” She tossed this way and that way, running round in circles. To run to Peter, trouble; to run to Francis trouble.
So she ran round and round, until a big, mighty voice cut through to her: “You know what we are going to do, madam, we are going to get the baby out for you. It is just a little prick and you won’t feel any pain.” The big voice was still talking and another moist hand was scratching her thigh with something needle-like. She felt it all, but did not see anything. Then peace descended like a shower of blessings.
There was peace everywhere. She had had the baby and it was now a boy of five. Francis was no longer a Lucifer, but a prosperous farmer They had their own house, large with spacious rooms, airy verandas. She was sitting on the veranda sipping the extracted juice of some ripe mangoes. They were talking and laughing. She and Francis. Francis was reminding her of their terrible time in London. And she was laughing, laughing and laughing … because it had happened such a long time ago when they were very young. But now it was all over. Titi was in a convent school in England and Vicky was at Eton. There were other children as well, but they were too young to go to school abroad. They were staying with them, wanting this and wanting that. Francis was so happy and was coming over to her cane chair, kissing her very, very softly, telling her how virtuous she was and how her price was above rubies. And how all the other farmers for miles and miles around had sold all their farms to him and how he now was the lord and master of several farms, miles and miles around. What more could a man want than a virtuous wife like her who had helped him achieve all this?
Then the trouble came back with the word “virtuous”. On and on rolled the word. Then all the colours of the rainbow appeared again, red, blue, yellow, pink; you name it, it was there, all the rainbow colours, and on each one was written “Virtuous”. Virtuous and more virtuous, so many of them. So confusing. Virtuous here and there, so confusing was the riot of colours and virtuousness that she did the only thing that came into her head. She screamed, high and loud.
On and on the screaming went. She would never stop.
Then she stopped all of a sudden. Somebody was smacking her on her thigh. That somebody was calling her “madam”. That somebody was urging her to wake up now, because they had finished. She tried her eyes; yes, she could open them. She surveyed her surroundings. The men and women were like angels of light, clothed in white. They were smiling down at her, lying there, not covered in flaming red blankets this time, but in clean white sheets, soft and immaculate. The only person with a splash of blood on him was the big man. There was no doubt about it. He was the person who had cut her open, to take out the funny baby that had lain across her, instead of lying straight like every other child. She thanked the big man with her eyes, for she was still weak from screaming, and from the cutting open. They sensed that she was asking them for her child.
They brought him. He was so big and so hairy that Adah was at first frightened. He was not only big and hairy like a baby gorilla, but hungry like a wolf. He did not cry like other babies, he was too busy with his mouth, sucking his big fingers, swallowing the wind. Good Lord, was that the child inside her all the time? Thank God they got him out in time. He was so hungry, he could have eaten up her insides.
“You’ve got a boy,” the nurse that was holding him said unnecessarily.
She smiled her thanks to them all and drifted into a peaceful sleep.
9
Learning the Rules
Adah woke to find herself in a big open hospital ward. She was on a bed at the extreme end of the ward, next to the door. Surveying the whole scene with her tired eyes, she recalled her old school’s dormitory. But instead of the beds containing young, black giggling girls, these beds contained women. Some were not very young, but most were young mothers like herself. They were talking, or most of them were, one or two were trying to read magazines. The conversations around her went on buzzing, buzzing. These women were all happy and free. They seemed to have known each other for years and years.
She was ashamed of herself, because somebody, she did not know who, had decided to make a fool of her. She was lying there, all tied up to the bed with rubber cords, just like the little Lilliputians tied Gulliver. There was a rubber tube running from her arm connected to a bottle of something like water. The something like water inside the bottle dripped, a drop at a time, and the drip would run through the tube and into her arm. Or so it seemed to her. This drip was on the right-hand side of her.
On her left was a big balloon-like bottle, white and clear. Inside this otherwise-clean bottle, like the ones used for making wine in, was some muddy water. The water contained some soot in it. The water looked like the running sooty water on a railway line on a wet day They, these invisible people, had tied her to this sooty bottle They allowed a rubber tube joined to it to run through her nose, to the back of her mouth. To talk was difficult; to move was impossible. She simply lay there, trying to puzzle out why she was being singled out for this treatment.
As if all that was not enough, a young nurse marched in with a stand, like the one attached to the bottle with the drip, and stationed it near her head. Another nurse soon followed, carrying a bottle half-filled with blood.
“Ah, so you are wide awake. Good!” the first nurse said by way of greeting.
The other one looked up from under Adah’s bed where she was screwing the nuts for the other stand and greeted her with a watery smile. “I don’t think we’ll need this, but just in case,” finished the second nurse. Both of them, nurse number one and nurse two, had turned the bottle of blood upside down, attached it to another tube, but left it like that. “We may not need it, but just in case,” nurse number two had said.
The nurses walked out briskly, as briskly as they had come. Adah turned her eyes to the woman on her right, and the woman smiled and asked her how her tummy was feeling. Adah tried to answer back, to tell her that at that moment a kind of mincer had been stationed inside her tummy by some angry gods; to tell her that this mincer seemed to be bent on turning everything inside her into a nice neat pulp; to tell her that the bottle with water attached to her left arm was placed there by those nurses and doctors to help the mincer mince her inside very quickly; to tell her that while all this mincing and dripping was going on, her body was hot, her lips parched like a desert wanderer and her head swinging round and round like the tub for spinning cotton But Adah could not say a word. The rubber tube that passed through her nose to her mouth had seen to that.
They were kind, those women in the ward. For the first few days, when Adah was deciding whether it was worth struggling to hold onto this life, those women kept showing her many things. They seemed to be telling her to look around her, that there were still many beautiful things to be seen, which she had not seen, that there were still several joys to be experienced which she had not yet experienced, that she was still young, that her whole life was still ahead of her.
She would never forget one woman, who looked the same age as Adah’s Ma. This woman had been married seventeen good years, and she had had no children. Never miscarried. And then all of a sudden God decided to visit her, just as He visited Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and she became pregnant and she too had a son. This woman never stopped showing this child around, even when she was not strong enough to walk properly. Adah did not know that the woman had had to wait seventeen years for her son, and she got tired of admiring this baby with thick brown hair which stood out angrily like electric wires. She was the more annoyed because the tube in her mouth did not give her any freedom to talk to the woman, to tell her that everybody in the ward had had a baby or was expe
cting one, to ask her what it was that was so special about her little son anyway, showing him around like that as if he were a prize or something. But, thank God she never had the opportunity to say this. Four days later, when the tube was removed, the woman next to her, whose husband looked old enough to be her father, told her that the woman with the baby with the wiry hair had had to wait for seventeen years to have a son. Adah gaped. Seventeen good years! She wanted to ask all sorts of questions. What did her husband do, for instance? She imagined herself in the woman’s position. Waiting and waiting for seventeen years for a child that was taking its time to make up its mind whether to come or not to come. She tried to imagine what her life with Francis would be if she had given him no child. She recalled Titi’s birth. After a long and painful ordeal she had come home to Francis bearing a girl. Everybody looked at her with an “is that all?” look. She had had the audacity to keep everybody waiting for nine months and four sleepless nights, only to tell them she had nothing but a girl. It was nine good months wasted. She paid for it, though, by having Vicky soon afterwards.
Suppose she had had to wait seventeen years for all that? She would have either died of psychological pressures or another wife would have been bought for Francis. He would have declared himself a Moslem, for he was once a Moslem when he was younger. Francis was like the Vicar of Bray. He changed his religion to suit his whims. When he realised that equipping Adah with birth-control gear would release her from the bondage of child-bearing, Francis went Catholic When he started failing his examinations and was feeling very inferior to his fellow Nigerians, he became a Jehovah’s Witness.
Second Class Citizen Page 13
