Under African Skies

by Charles Larson

  2

  All day Kollie had been feeling uneasy at work. He was very busy at his carpentry shop, sweating heavily on that hot Friday in February, the height of the tropical dry season in Liberia, but he had kept thinking and worrying about Marwu’s sickness. Since he brought his family from Voinjama to Monrovia to find a carpentry job in the national capital six years ago, Marwu had been quite sickly. But she hadn’t been very ill like this. Her body was now wasting very fast; her swollen legs were bothering her; her joints were aching; and malaria was frequently troubling her.

  “I too tired and hungry,” Kollie said. “This carpenter work is breaking my back.”

  “But if you ain’t work, we won’t eat,” Marwu said and told her oldest daughter to bring her father’s food to the table. “I’m too sick to work for money in the farmers’ market doing my little food business.”

  “You ain’t supposed to worry about money in you condition. When you get well, you’ll go back to the market to work.”

  “But things are hard on us this time. Even our food supply almost finished now. Just look in you bowls.”

  Kollie uncovered the rice and soup bowls his oldest daughter had placed before him on the table. There wasn’t much in either one.

  “Well, as for the food supply, you must go easy with the little one here,” Kollie said. “My payday ain’t ready to come now ’cause the moon ain’t finished yet.”

  “But I always go easy with everything in the home,” Marwu quickly protested. “It’s just that we never get enough of anything and we must share every little thing with our old people upcountry.”

  “I know things are hard on us, but we won’t forget our own people in Voinjama ’cause they’re depending on us.”

  When Kollie had eaten his dinner, he drew his chair closer to Marwu. He had mustered enough courage to talk with Marwu about her hospitalization. He knew for sure that she wasn’t going to be happy with the news.

  “Try to get up,” he said to her. “We’ve got something serious to talk about tonight.”

  “I ain’t want any serious or big talk tonight,” Marwu said. “Maybe I’m going to die, so you want to say goodbye to me now.”

  “Don’t you bring any bad luck on me ’cause I ain’t want see any dead body in the home.”

  Marwu laughed softly as she slowly twisted her wan body on her mat again, being very careful not to hurt her swollen legs on the hard cement floor. When she sat up, she leaned on the wall, and then covered her large breasts with her buba and lappa. Despite her pale look, Marwu still had some of the youthful beauty she had brought to Kollie at the age of nineteen, almost a dozen years ago.

  “Darling wife, I think we’ve got to do something different about you sickness now,” Kollie said.

  “So what we’ll do?” Marwu asked.

  Kollie’s face suddenly grew stern, but his voice still remained calm. “I think you must go back to the big hospital where you took you operation last time,” Kollie said, reading Marwu’s face carefully.

  Marwu jerked violently on her Mandingo mat, as though someone had splashed boiling water on her swollen legs. Her heart began to beat very fast and she grew dizzy right away.

  “No, no, I ain’t want to go to any hospital,” Marwu said, and burst into tears. “I scare the doctors there will operate on me again.”

  “Don’t you worry about operation,” Kollie said. “We ain’t know yet if you’ll take any more operation in the hospital.”

  “I always get sick whenever I take any operation, and maybe that the first operation making me sick like this. So I ain’t know why you’re pushing me to go back to the hospital. I think you want to get me out of you way.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I think you’ve seen my death in you sleep, so you want to dump me in the hospital and go away from me.”

  “Oh, Marwu, why you’re talking like that?” Kollie said, almost in tears. “I ain’t see you death in my dream.”

  Kollie stared at Marwu with his mouth wide open. The tone of her voice had somewhat scared him, but he felt a great relief.

  “So when you’ll take me to the hospital?” Marwu said, after she had cried for a few minutes.

  “Tonight,” Kollie said, rather absentmindedly. “Is that okay?”

  “Go to the hospital tonight?” Marwu screamed. “Oh, no.”

  Kollie momentarily shifted his attention to the children. He fondled the nape of his son’s neck, as his daughters stood around him. He hoped that Marwu would give birth to another boy child if she could make the journey to the hospital for a safe delivery. Kollie didn’t want to admit to himself that his strong desire for another son had been the main reason for wanting Marwu to get pregnant, even though she wasn’t willing because of the cesarean section she had with her last child two years ago. And he hadn’t forgotten how Marwu got sick for nearly six months after the cesarean operation.

  “I see you’re too serious about this hospital business,” Marwu said, after thinking the matter over for a few minutes. “So I guess I must agree with you. But how much money we’ll pay to the hospital for all the treatment?”

  “I’m talking about your sickness, and you talking about money?” Kollie said, looking hard at his wife.

  Marwu threw a quick scornful look at Kollie’s face.

  “You ain’t know we must always worry about money palaver?” Marwu said. “You know hospitals in Monrovia call for much money.”

  “True, but if we must sell or pawn all our belongings, you must go to the hospital,” Kollie said.

  “Where are the belongings we’ve got to sell or pawn for money?” Marwu said. “You ain’t mean these old, old things in this room.”

  Kollie laughed sheepishly. Then he surveyed their property with his big eyes.

  3

  The journey to the hospital wasn’t easy. Kollie, his wife, and their five children had had to walk nearly two miles to get to the main road where they would either catch a city bus or take a taxicab downtown. Then they would change to a train that would take them to the hospital on the northern outskirts of Monrovia, miles away from their home.

  “Will we take the bus to town?” Marwu said, when they got on the main road. “I hope one is coming this way soon.”

  “Take the bus instead of the taxi; which is faster?” Kollie said. “We must go quickly ’cause it’s getting dark.”

  “Yeah, by the bus; it’s cheaper. Bus drivers kin sometimes help with children free, but with a taxi, I ain’t know.”

  “You always get hard on money business, but that’s okay.”

  “Yeah, you kin say that. You who work for house builders know that when one is finished it kin take you forever to find another carpenter job. In the five years we’ve been in Monrovia we ain’t see any good luck yet.”

  “Well, we won’t go back to Voinjama like that ’cause we came here to find work and money so we’ll send our children to school.”

  “I know that. I myself want these little ones to learn something so they kin never suffer like us, but the hard times too much on us now.”

  Kollie turned around to pat his only son on the back. Then he looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock.

  As Kollie and his family stood in the cold on the dusty road, waiting for a city bus, many people were passing them. But no one seemed to care about their trouble at all. Kollie knew that in Voinjama and other towns nobody would have passed them without talking to them. He missed this aspect of traditional rural life in the big city, where his family felt lonesome among so great a population.

  When Kollie and his family finally arrived at the hospital around ten o’clock, he left Marwu and the children a few yards away from the door. Then he walked over to the entrance supervisor, who sat cross-legged, chatting with three women and looking completely unconcerned about what went on at the entrance. One of the women had to call his attention to Kollie’s greeting.

  Then he rose unsteadily and looked at Kollie questioningly.
“What’s your problem, sir?” the supervisor asked.

  “I want to go inside the hospital with my family,” Kollie said.

  “No, not tonight. Visiting hours are over now.”

  “We aren’t visiting, but …”

  “Please don’t stand in the door.”

  Kollie stepped back a little to give way to three persons who were going into the maternity center. But he noticed that they all discreetly pushed dollar bills into the supervisor’s hand.

  “May I go with my family now?” Kollie asked.

  “No, not like that,” the entrance supervisor said.

  “But other people are going inside the hospital.”

  The entrance supervisor scratched his head. “I guess you don’t know what can be going on at night at big hospitals in Monrovia,” the supervisor said to Kollie, staring at him for a few moments. “Don’t you know that you must throw something in my hand before going inside?”

  Kollie tried to convince the supervisor to let him and his family into the hospital. When he found out that his pleading and protesting weren’t getting him anywhere, he reached into his pockets. Nothing was in any of them. So he walked over to his wife, who was watching everything at the entrance.

  “You ain’t got no small money on you to throw to the door supervisor?” he said to Marwu.

  “But we ain’t go inside yet, they’re asking for money now?” Marwu said. “I think I’m going to die outside here tonight.”

  “No, this is just to get us through the door.”

  “Let me see,” Marwu said, carelessly fishing into her handbag. “Well, I ain’t get anything.”

  Kollie went back to the door supervisor. “Sir, my wife’s too sick and want to see doctor tonight,” he said to the supervisor. “So please let us go in ’cause I ain’t got nothing on me tonight.”

  “Is your wife coming for any operation or some kind of emergency?” the supervisor asked. “What’s her problem?”

  Marwu lifted her ears up when she heard about an operation.

  The supervisor stared at Marwu again, and after some more questions and answers, he let Kollie and his family into the hospital.

  “What’s happening here tonight?” Marwu asked Kollie as they walked into the hospital. “How come lots of people are here?”

  Kollie and his family had entered the maternity center through the back door, the most dilapidated part of the building, with faded paint and worn cement and wood. Many people were rushing in and out. Marwu noticed that some of the women going out of the center had babies in baskets, and they were walking very fast with their infants.

  “I think they’re running away so they won’t pay the hospital bills,” said Kollie, “’cause money palaver is hard on lots of people in the city.”

  “How kin they get away with that?” Marwu asked.

  “How?” Kollie said. “You want to try it yourself?”

  “Oh, not me. I won’t do that. You know we come from the Lorma tribe and our people believe in being honest and trueful.”

  It was a long way from the entrance to the admissions office. Kollie and his family walked on steadily. But they didn’t go far when Marwu slipped and fell in the hallway.

  “Help me!” Marwu cried.

  “What’s wrong?” Kollie asked, turning around quickly to Marwu. “Is that you stomach again?”

  “I think this is my end now,” Marwu said to Kollie, and started to cry loudly. “This baby is too much for me.”

  As Kollie struggled to help his wife, a senior midwife, Miss Marcah Washington, heard Marwu’s crying in the hallway and came out to see what the problem was.

  “I guess this is your wife?” Miss Washington said. “What’s your name?”

  “Tanu Kollie, from Sinkor, Old Road area,” Kollie said.

  “But, Kollie, why you kept your wife until her sickness was so advanced before bringing her to the hospital?”

  “We were trying by ourselves in town.”

  “I bet ’twas one of those rotten practical nurses giving your wife the wrong drugs at home.”

  “We ain’t got money to be coming to hospital all the time.”

  “And why you brought all these children here this time of the night?” the midwife asked.

  “We ain’t got nobody to look after them,” Kollie said.

  “All right,” Miss Washington said, “I’ll get some nurses to take your wife to the Emergency Department.”

  “I want to stay with her tonight,” Kollie said.

  “No, take the children home and come back tomorrow.”

  “What will the doctors do for her tonight?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Miss Washington said, after touching Marwu’s forehead, hands, and legs. “But the way she is too sick with lots of complications, including swollen legs and hands, I think she might have to take an operation or two …”

  Marwu shuddered.

  4

  All was quiet in the doctor’s office as Kollie stared at the hospital documents for his wife. After giving Kollie the red emergency form and another medical questionnaire, the chief medical doctor, Joseph N. Togbah, had fallen silent. But he soon noticed that Kollie was growing pale.

  Kollie had just rushed into the hospital to see his wife that Monday afternoon, a few days after she had been admitted. When he found Miss Washington, she told him that the chief doctor wanted to see him.

  “Oh, right now?” Kollie nervously asked.

  “Well, yes, but it’s a routine call,” the midwife replied.

  The carpenter could feel his heart thumping as he walked into Dr. Togbah’s office. He sat down quietly and folded his hands. Though the air-conditioned office was very cold, he soon began to sweat heavily. He pressed his lips tight, as if he would never talk again in his whole life.

  “Can you read and write?” the doctor asked Kollie. “We’ve got a few papers here for you to sign.”

  “Yes, Dr. Togbah, I’ll try,” Kollie said. “I ain’t go far in school, but I kin read and write a little.”

  Then the doctor put two sheets of paper before Kollie; one was red and the other was green. Kollie stared at them. He was afraid to touch the red hospital certificate.

  “Is this my wife’s death certificate?” Kollie asked in a trembling voice.

  The doctor sighed deeply. “Well, yes, Kollie, the red paper is the death certificate for your wife,” the doctor said. “It’s our regular emergency form for major risky or critical operations, but don’t worry about it. Just fill it out and sign it …”

  “Is my wife going to have any operation soon?” Kollie asked.

  “We can’t tell right now, though our exams show various complications. Your wife’s in a very critical condition. So we must have all the necessary papers signed for her. She might have to undergo an emergency operation.”

  “But why you ain’t keep the death certificate?”

  “Any person coming to us here for any surgery for a critical condition must sign this red emergency certificate. By signing this death certificate, you and your family are waiving all your rights to hold any doctor, nurse, midwife, or hospital administrator responsible for anything if your wife should die—or even develop any complication before, during, and after surgery.”

  “I think this death certificate kin bring bad luck on people.”

  “Don’t be superstitious,” the doctor said. “We have explained this one red hospital paper to many patients and their families, but nobody seems to understand what it’s used for.”

  “There ain’t no other way to help my wife ’cause she too scared of operation?”

  “We’ll see later what can be done for her. The main trouble with your wife is her various complications: swollen legs, frequent dizziness, elevated blood pressure, excessive vomiting, gastroenteris, and a history of cesarean section. So I don’t think any medical doctor would touch your wife on an operation table without the death certificate being signed for her …”

  Kollie stared at the death certi
ficate; he knew that everybody was afraid of it. It had now become legendary enough for superstitions to grow about it. In fact, Kollie had learned from some of his friends in the neighborhood that only a few people for whom the death certificate was signed ever survived their operations.

  Kollie moved his hands tremulously toward the doctor’s desk. Because his hands continued to tremble while he wrote on the hospital documents, a nurse had to assist him, as if he himself were a sick person.

  5

  Kollie shuttled daily between the hospital and his carpentry shop to visit his wife. A week after he had signed the death certificate for Marwu, Dr. Togbah called him into his office again.

  “This time we need to talk about the payment of your wife’s medical bills,” the doctor said. “By any chance, are you on any government health program or medical insurance?”

  “No, sir,” Kollie replied. “I’m working for a private house-building company, but my bossmen ain’t give me any medical insurance.”

  “Then you must pay your wife’s medical bills in full and possibly in advance.”

  “How much will we pay?”

  “Well,” the doctor said, scratching his head. “Let’s say seven to nine hundred dollars, if any surgery is undertaken.”

  Kollie gasped. Where could such a large sum of money come from? His wages wouldn’t help him out with such an amount.

  “But my wife was here for an operation before, and we ain’t pay much and we paid in installment,” Kollie said.

  “That’s true,” the doctor said, after reading over Marwu’s hospital record. “That was a long time ago and things have changed. Anyway, if your wife doesn’t need any surgery, you’ll pay much less than that. But if she takes an operation, gets delivery services, stays in the hospital for a few weeks, and gets special care, you’ll be looking at about a thousand dollars.”