I told her how I had Ezinwa and about his birth, which had seemed more painful than any human could bear. I spoke about how Mama Nathan had become possessive of my little boy. And how, one day, she had stolen Ezinwa and vanished to God knows where.
‘Stop!’ she ordered, raising a trembling hand as if to restrain me physically.
Was it being cooped up here for days, with only bread and water for nourishment that was making her look sick? Or worry for her child, who would now have to abandon his wedding plans to deal with this situation? Did these thugs realise how bad this was for her hypertension?
‘Hey,’ I shouted, trying to get the attention of the guards again.
‘No,’ Auntie Julie said. ‘Don’t call them. Finish your story.’
‘No, Ma. You do not look well. Do you think you should lie down?’
‘No,’ she said. Her breath came heavy and audible. ‘No. I will be fine. I will be fine. Just go on with the story, please. What happened after Mama Nathan took the baby? Where did she go?’
‘To Enugu, but I did not know this until years after. She died, and she was brought home and buried. She did not come with the baby, and nobody knows if my child died, or if he might be alive somewhere even now.’
Our ordeal was exhausting me, sharpening the pain I carry with me always. Tears slid down my face, clouding my vision. I did not wipe them off.
Auntie Julie stared at me but said nothing. We were silent for a little while. Then, without prompting, I went on with my story.
I told her about Chidinma. How her sister took me in. How I started my tailoring shop. I skipped over the men whom I had shared my life with during that time – the one who went with me to the village and, having heard there that I had had a son out of wedlock and, facing the obstructions my stepmother invented, decided I was not worth the trouble. Or the married army major whom I had dated, to the dismay and outspoken disapproval of Uzoamaka, who had by then taken on the role of mother.
I spent many years searching for Ezinwa. When I said this, I saw an expression I could not decipher pass across Aunt Julie’s face. Did she not believe me, I wondered. I carried on. The search turned up nothing. Nobody seemed to know where Mama Nathan went when she left the village; her clansmen either claimed ignorance, or didn’t make any special effort to help me. It seemed that I was not destined to have a family. Uzoamaka’s family became mine. Even after I made more money, I lived with them in Uwani, where I took over the rent. Until I met Ifechi.
It was a good marriage, I said. He loved me, and often said how in awe he was of my resilience. A ghost of a smile passed across Auntie Julie’s face.
I told Auntie Julie that I planned to develop a clothing line, make shoes and bags with local materials like Ankara. I planned to exhibit at a fashion show in Lagos next year. My daughter had suggested it. It was usually young people who did these things, but who was to say that I could not do as well as them? Life was not over; it was only just beginning. Or so I thought until the kidnapping.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JULIE
Nwabulu’s voice stopped. The rest of her story had come from a long distance away, blurred in comparison to the earlier part. For some reason, I thought about the announcements on NTA in the Eighties, the ones about missing children. A child would look into the camera, forlorn, silent tears coursing down its cheeks. The announcer would say, ‘This child was found wandering along Zik Avenue this afternoon by a good Samaritan who brought him to our station. He is about four years old. He does not know his address. He was unable to state his father and mother’s names.’
Afam would ask me, his eyes big and solemn, ‘What if he does not have a father or a mother?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I always replied, smiling for reassurance. ‘Of course he has a mother and father. Everyone has a mother and father. Just like you do. Now repeat your name and address to me.’
‘Afam Obiechina,’ he would say.
‘Your address,’ I would prompt.
‘Number 5, First Avenue, Independence Layout, Enugu.’
‘Your father’s name?’
‘Chief Eugene Obiechina.’
‘And your mother’s name?’
‘Mrs Julie Obiechina,’ he would answer.
Mrs Julie Obiechina, I thought now. I was his mother. I raised him. Taught him his address, taught him his alphabets. Potty-trained him, kissed him goodnight. Steadied him when he tried to lose himself in teenage years. Was planning to help raise the grandchildren he would give me. Me, not any other woman.
But I looked over at the woman who sat across from me, her back leaning against the wall, her face pensive, streaked with the now-dried tears she had cried for the boy she had called Ezinwa. Against my will, pictures flooded my mind, of the young woman she must have been, of Mama Nathan snatching the boy and escaping to Obiageli’s house, of the despair Nwabulu must have felt travelling on that bus to Enugu and through the years. I shut my eyes and heart. I did not want to feel anything. But I saw the tears, and heard the quiet pain. And I knew that it was time. Time to tell the truth.
Liars, my father had often told us, were always found out. I had been found out. But it was not Nwabulu whom I had lied to – it was Eugene. Did it matter? a voice asked me. It was time to tell the truth, regardless. What were the odds that our paths, Nwabulu’s and mine, would cross in this life? That we would be caught in this situation together? The universe had spoken. I would obey. And take the consequences.
I opened my mouth and began to speak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
NWABULU
It sounded too fantastic to be true, otherworldly. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was not dreaming. No, there she was and her lips were still moving. I stared at her, seeing not the polished woman who had walked into my shop a mere three months ago, but a child thief, a haggard, old-looking woman, whose wide mouth was spouting truths that flogged my ears. I wanted to know the sort of woman who took another’s child and kept him for years. How could she carry out such an act, steal a child, and live for years undetected? How was that possible?
Tears escaped me, quiet sobs too. I wished I could cry the way I did as a child, loud and hard, to relieve the pressure in my chest, a volcano on the verge of eruption.
‘You are a thief!’ I shouted at one point.
‘I did not know that he had any family who might have been willing to care for him,’ she said quietly.
‘But did you look? Or were you looking to deceive a man who was married to another? Did he even know he was deceived? That my son was not his?’
She was silent.
‘I know that this is hard for you but—’ she began.
‘No, you don’t. Nor do you care,’ I interrupted. How could she care? Did she know how many tears I had shed over the years? That I still had nightmares that left vivid, horrific images in my mind, that I wondered if my son was a beggar, an armed robber? No, she could not care. Not enough.
‘We gave him the best. He went to the best schools. He is a Canadian citizen now; he has access to the world.’
Demonic emotions ran through me: I wanted to pull out her hair, slap her, punch her, kick her like that insolent young kidnapper had done. But I could not get up from where I sat. Instead, I screamed, snarled like a dog.
A guard came in.
What was going on, he wanted to know. Both of us were silent. He warned us not to make any more noise, otherwise we would not like the consequences.
I wanted to get up and walk and throw my hands about, but here I was shackled, imprisoned with the woman who had stolen my child. The young man in the photographs in her house had looked so familiar because he looked like me, like my son Chukwuemeka, like my mother.
I could not bear to look at her. When I did, her pleading eyes never left my face, forcing me to look elsewhere. Why should I be made to feel like I had done wrong, when she was the one who was guilty? Was she any different from these young hooligans who had kidnapped women old enough to be t
heir mother or even grandmother? Had she not taken the child without any concern for the mother?
That night, my anger did not let me sleep at all. It consumed me, ravaged my soul.
On the second night, Julie woke me up. I had been thrashing around in my nightmare, searching for my son. My body shook uncontrollably. She whispered, ‘I am sorry, Nwabulu. Gbahalu.’ She said this over and over, until I lay still. ‘Gbahalu,’ she repeated, ‘gbahalu.’
As I lay there, a feeling of calm came over me, a feeling of peace. For, in spite of everything, I had found my son at last – Ezinwa. My worst fears, that he might be hungry, living in poverty, or worse, dead, had not come true. Instead, this woman had raised my son. He was probably a big success, thanks to her and her husband. What could I have given him at that time? Who was to say that if Mama Nathan had not died, I would have laid my eyes on him again? Or that if Obiageli had returned him to Mama Nathan’s family, they would have let me have him?
After a while, I sat up and took a deep breath. And, as if we had been having a regular conversation, I asked, ‘What is he like?’
She smiled a tremulous smile. ‘He is like you to look at. Tall, very dark skinned. His voice is deep, though. He is industrious, like Eugene, but his father would have had a fit to think that all the money he spent on a Canadian education was not for work at Microsoft, or to run an engineering conglomerate. But he is doing well as a music producer,’ she said proudly.
‘His father,’ she said.
I thought of Urenna, who did not know that he had a child, who did not care. And, for a second, I was glad that Ezinwa had had a father who cared about him.
‘He met the Kenyan girl he is about to marry in Canada. Lovely girl. His father would have thrown a fit about that too. And what would he have done if he knew that she was keeping her name? I wonder. Afam says if their children are all girls, he will not mind. Eugene would have hit the roof. He would have disowned him.’ She burst out laughing, as if this were the funniest thing in the world, the way young people turned the world upside down.
It was clear that she liked to talk about Afam, and she had plenty of stories. At some points, I was jealous; at others, I simply soaked it in, seeing him through her eyes. The picture she painted was of a perfect, unblemished, industrious, kind young man.
I tried not to get ahead of myself imagining our first meeting, Ezinwa’s meeting with his siblings, but I couldn’t help it. I knew Ifechi would be happy for me, he who had wiped many tears and soothed me after many nightmares. He was the only one who had any inkling how this must feel. Eventually, I fell asleep.
…
When I awoke, I looked over at Auntie Julie, who was lying on her side, her face to the wall. The callousness of these kidnappers made me angry. How could they keep an old woman in this state? They, too, were making choices like Mama Nathan had made, like Auntie Julie, hurting others because they could not have what they needed. I moved over to touch her, using my hands to propel myself.
She was unnaturally quiet. ‘Auntie Julie! Julie, Mrs Obiechina!’ I shouted, but there was no response. I reached for her hand. It felt heavy in mine as I searched for a pulse, the way I had seen them do on television. I found nothing.
‘Guard! Hey!’ I screamed.
‘We need to get to a hospital, quick,’ I begged when one of the kidnappers came in.
The young man looked frightened, fumbling in his pocket for a phone. He spoke into it, telling someone, the boss most likely, what was happening. He kept nodding up and down like a lizard while he received his orders. At one point, a quick smile touched his face. He nodded again.
The other guard came in.
‘Wetin dey happen?’ he asked.
The first one quickly told him. Then he said, ‘The boss said the money has come in. He has picked it up. We will meet him at that place.’
‘Wetin we go do with these ones now?’
‘The boss say make we carry them go put for the junction.’
Chineke, they were going to take us somewhere and leave us, leave Auntie Julie, on the road.
‘She needs to go to the hospital o – tell your boss you must take us to the hospital,’ I pleaded, but the first guard ignored me, went out and returned with a blindfold. Soon darkness descended.
‘Please don’t cover her eyes.’ For some reason, I thought this might make Auntie Julie worse, even though I could not tell if she was dead already.
If they heard my plea, they gave no indication. Instead, they tied my mouth the same way they did when they first kidnapped us seven days before.
‘She dey smell,’ I heard one say. I heard grunts, sounds of heaving. They were carrying her out.
‘Kai, wetin dis woman dey chop sef. Ah ah,’ I heard one of them complain.
After what seemed like a long time, they came for me. I was forced into what felt like a small car. We must have been travelling for thirty, maybe forty minutes along a bumpy road when we came to a stop. The kidnappers heaved and grunted, and I heard what must have been Auntie Julie coming to rest on the ground like a heavy bag. They pulled me out of the car and untied my mouth, then my eyes. It took a little time for my eyes to adjust to the glare of the sun-drenched day. By that time, their car was already too far away for me to register any more than its colour.
I found Auntie Julie on the ground, lying very still. Please, God, I thought, don’t let her be dead.
I touched her, held up her hands, and finally found what it was those doctors on television look for, a tell-tale vein pulsing up and down faintly. My vocal cords and hands and feet found their strength, and I flung myself into the middle of what looked like a deserted road.
But God was at home that day. A car came along, and inside was my beloved Ifechi. The kidnappers had told him where to find us after he had paid the ransom. We both sobbed and I pointed to where Julie lay.
‘Hurry!’ I cried, ‘I think she’s had a stroke.’
It is difficult to get a human being into a car, I acknowledged afterwards, thinking of all the awkwardness I had seen in Nollywood movies. An overweight woman like Julie was even more hard work. I was weak and my hands hurt, but at last we managed to heave her into Ifechi’s car. I got in beside him and we sped to the hospital.
I heard myself praying out loud, something I had not done in many years. Julie had to live, I prayed. How would Afam marry without her there? Who would tell Afam that I was his mother? Would he believe me? Would he think me mad? Would he ever be able to love me? Would he say he did not want to be the housemaid’s son? These questions rose in my heart.
But it was not only my desire for my son that pushed me to pray. Julie had to live. Our week of captivity together, our meals of bread and water, our laughter and our stories had created a bond between us that seemed like seventy years, not seven days. I knew what her laughter sounded like, I knew the movement of her cheeks when she chewed her food. I knew that she snored when she slept; I knew the determination in her eyes and the gentleness of her spirit. I knew that she suffered some incontinence – how could a woman who had not birthed a child suffer incontinence, she had asked me, only yesterday. That was one of the mysteries of life, I told her. Her laughter was hearty and long, heartier and longer than my joke.
No, it was not only Ezinwa that made me pray she would live. It was Julie herself. We had shared a bond not easily broken, two women doing their best in their world.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It has been my dream to write a novel since I was a child. I thank the Lord Jesus, the giver of all good gifts, who makes my dreams come true.
This book is dedicated to my parents: Prof. (Chief) Obidinma Onyemelukwe and Dr Rebecca Onyemelukwe. I will always be grateful for their support, love, faith and encouragement throughout my life, for being my first champions. I thank them for being living examples of tenacity and grit, their gift of stories, and what part of their gift of storytelling I received. I love you both. Always.
I thank my husband, Fred Onuobia, for his l
ove, support and encouragement, unwavering faith in me and my abilities, for providing room for me to pursue my dreams. I love you. Thanks also to my loving and amazing children, God’s gifts to me – Kelechi, Oluchi, and Udochi – for bringing joy, love, meaning and inspiration to my life. I can’t wait to read your books.
I am grateful to my sister Akaoma for her love, friendship, encouragement and tenacity: you inspire me; to my sister Ijendu, my brother Soke, and my sister Tochi, thank you for all the love and support.
Many thanks to the many who supported me in different ways as I worked on this book: to Jane Craig for her love and support through the years, Ikhide Ikheloa for incisive, honest reviews of this and earlier manuscripts and, more importantly, for his friendship, Ukamaka Osigwe for her love and friendship through the years and for calling me that early morning to ask when I would get to work on the book, to Chinelo Oraghalum Ezenwa for her love and friendship over many years, to Anwuli Ojogwu for reviewing the manuscript, linking me with important resources and hand-holding through this process, to Florida Uzoaru for reviewing early drafts of the book and sharing her thoughts on it, and to Ike Anya for support. I am full of appreciation for each one of you. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem enough.
I thank the anonymous reviewer whose perceptive book report gave me the hope that others would ‘get’ this book. I am grateful also to Penguin Random House, South Africa for giving this book a home. Thank you to Fourie Botha for your warmth, accommodation, and patience through the publishing process, to my editor Dr Jenefer Shute for your nitpicking and working to keep the spirit of the book even as you helped me polish it, and to Elzebet Stubbe for your warm welcome to this book and being the bringer of good news.
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