Speechless

by Anne Simpson

  It should be me, said Grace.

  No, said Serena soothingly. It should not be you.

  But it shouldn’t be Felix. Not my Felix.

  Felix might not make it. They hadn’t noticed Sophie at the door. He might not. When a nurse came, she took Felix’s blood pressure, clucked to herself, vanished. Another nurse came in. They talked quietly, not in English, but Sophie could tell something was wrong.

  What is it? asked Grace.

  The doctor arrived, interrupting the nurses, not Dr. Osungwe, but a young man with square glasses. He assessed the situation, went out of the room and talked briefly on his phone, returned to Grace. We are going to induce a coma so his body can recover, he said.

  A coma? said Grace. Shouldn’t you ask Dr. Osungwe?

  We have spoken just now.

  But she said —

  Will he be all right? asked Serena. I mean, if you induce a coma. It seems like a drastic measure.

  We are taking all necessary precautions, he said soothingly.

  Grace and Serena gave consent; the doctor induced a coma. Now Felix would not speak to them.

  SOPHIE LAY IN DAMP LEAVES. When she finally sat up, she realized hours must have passed, and the day that had begun in warm sunshine was now grey, bitten with chill, and a wind was pulling at the tops of the trees. Felix, did she see him there? And Grace, stooped over a basin of oranges on her low stool — No, nothing but trees.

  Sophie woke, rubbed her face. Grace was in the chair next to Felix, her head down, praying. They had put Felix on a ventilator and his breathing sounded gusty. Sophie shifted past the monitor to get close to his bed. The disinfectant smell. They could lose him. His organs could fail. Maybe they had already begun to fail. She wanted just the touch of him, living. She couldn’t touch his nose or mouth, but she could run her hand over the fine, very fine curls on his head. If Grace hadn’t been there, she would have kissed his head, she would have told him that he couldn’t leave her.

  When she went out of the hospital to get a breath of air, she had no idea what time of day it was. Day had become night and night had become day. They’d induced a coma, that was all she knew. There was a white sky, heat that drilled into her. She tried to get her bearings, but someone honked at her, and a hand emerged from a car window, gesturing for her to move out of the way. She felt drunk with fatigue as she began walking. There was no sidewalk, but at least the street was lined with trees. Maitama, she remembered. In Abuja. She was in Abuja. She glanced back at the hospital so she would recall it. I’m scared, Felix had said to her. She could find her way back. But she hadn’t counted on the way the sun lanced her eyes.

  A woman reversed out of a driveway without looking. Sophie leapt out of the way. A woman in sunglasses driving a blue Audi. Sophie didn’t see the cabin. And it wasn’t the right clearing, with the bench from which she could gaze into the blue-grey distance, the fringe of barrier beaches and the ocean, the Northumberland Strait, unchanged and deeply blue, with the soft blur of hills behind. They sprang into action because no heart should beat that fast. She should have been able to look to the left, to the cabin built on the slope, half-hidden by spruce, but it wasn’t there. His heart could fail. She was in the middle of an unknown city with no idea why she was there. Felix explained, We’re doing this for Simon. She’d been standing beside Felix on a shining floor, standing on the buckled ribbons of white and pale-green and dark-green marble.

  Oyinbo. Someone on a motorbike yelled at her.

  She was lost. The world darkened into deep blue and the air cooled around her, so she shivered in her damp clothes. Nothing was where it should have been. If she wasn’t near the cabin, where was she? The man on the motorbike swerved around her. Her father had once told her that if she got lost, she should aim for the ridges, not the valleys. She could hear his voice saying it, as if he were beside her. Clouds moved across the sky, pulled by an unseen hand. Soft ribs of white, loosely curved. A spine of cloud. Children played behind a courtyard wall. Was it day or was it night? She was on Cross River Street. The children were laughing on the other side of a wall covered in bougainvillea, sweet waterfalls of sound. But there was no telling which direction was the right one. I’m just trouble for you, she said. Oh, Felix. A smell of damp earth, the sound of her shoes through the piles of leaves, maple leaves mottled with black spots, spider-backed leaves. The next few days will be a make-or-break time for him, Dr. Osungwe had said. His body will have to work very hard to get rid of the infection.

  He wasn’t out of the woods. He was deep in the woods. Sophie went on, tired now, cross with herself, a snag of pain at each step, through the brokenness of dead trees, the spoked branches overlaid with other spoked branches, climbing over and crouching under, over and under, getting scratched and weary. The cabin was nowhere to be found. If he died — Sophie wasn’t going to cross Takara Street because there was too much traffic. The owl, again — what time was it? Farther along was a great old hemlock, with a massive trunk forking into two; it had been struck by lightning on one side, burnt black. Blood pressure too low, heart rate too high. A car alarm panicked and panicked and panicked somewhere. She was in Abuja, that was where she was. And here in the woods, another tree right beside the first one, which must have been hit in the same lightning strike. They could so easily lose him. She drew her hand over the surface of it, a tree like old dead bone. She needed to settle herself before walking any farther. It could take over his body, the sepsis, no matter how hard the white blood cells worked. The car alarm stopped as suddenly as it had started. She’d stay here, rest near the pair of struck, burnt trees. It was too busy; it was too hot; it smelled of exhaust.

  Hello, said someone. Are you Sophie?

  No, she couldn’t stay here. She had to leave, and she roused herself, saw the way the clear water rounded between the stones, foaming as it spilled over a branch. A reddened leaf was caught under the flow. A padding of moss over stones on its banks. Don’t be sorry, beautiful woman, said Felix. He was grinning. It was as if it had all been caught and held inside amber: the water and stones, the red leaf, the moss, the sound of the hoot owl, whuuo-whuuo, Felix’s smile.

  Is your name Sophie? A woman’s voice, or a girl’s.

  They had put him on a ventilator. Some of the moss was feathery, different than the moss that covered the larger stones. Maybe the antibiotics were wrong. In places, the moss was emerald green and in other places it was nearly golden. Sophie shivered, shivered, she couldn’t stop.

  Someone touched her arm. Sophie, she said. It was a young girl.

  Yes.

  I am Binta, said the girl.

  Who —

  Your mother is here, and your auntie and uncle. They told us you went out of the hospital, said Binta.

  She took Sophie’s hand. Her voice was gentle, encouraging, and she kept her hand loosely linked with Sophie’s. She squinted at the sky. The sun is too much.

  Sophie nodded.

  You will come? said Binta.

  They walked, hand linked in hand, under the leafy branches of the trees in Maitama. Cross River Street, Jos Street. The shadows of the leaves puzzled the asphalt, but they walked through the dark and the light. Sophie was outside herself, inside herself. She was lost.

  They were near the hospital now. Across the road, its many windows shone, glazed with bronze gold.

  Your uncle and auntie will let me stay with them, said Binta.

  Sophie was trembling. She couldn’t make herself go across the road. Would Felix be worse than before?

  They tell me I will stay with them in their house, with their children. They are kind.

  Yes, said Sophie, but she was looking at the bronzed windows. She had to say yes to whatever came next. Felix would live or he would die. How many windows? They were like openings into another world. She couldn’t be afraid of what came next. She had to face it, even though she knew, now, how fiercely she loved him. Someone was hammering nearby. She might have to lose him. She had to be like her mother w
hen her father died. There was a way to walk into it, and she walked into it, holding Binta’s hand in her own hand. One foot in front of the other, hammering, even though she was frightened. They went across the road.

  Felix was coming through the woods. Yes, he was. She could hear his shoes in the leaves. Whissht, whissht. She opened her eyes to a few slaps of cold rain; she watched a fat brown spider hunkered on its web, but it might have been dead. It might have clung there through the winter. A jay cried raucously, not one cry but two. The rain stopped, her heart lurched on. Felix wasn’t there. Where had he gone? But she had said yes. She had said yes.

  CLARE WAS OUTSIDE THE ICU to greet Sophie. She pulled her close, held her. Uncle Thomas, Aunt Monica. Binta. Felix’s sister Joanna. Now Felix’s brother Clifford came through the heavy doors with Grace. There were too many people; they had to make way for an orderly. One of them said, Sophie, we didn’t know where you’d gone. Someone else said Felix looked better, he was really looking better. The antibiotics were doing the trick. Sophie put her hand against the wall. Trick, she thought. She could feel herself shivering. She wanted only one thing, but there were too many people talking at the same time. Joanna said she was going to take her mother away for a little rest, and she’d bring her back later. Who was Joanna? Where was she taking Grace? Clare asked if Sophie was all right, whether she needed to sit.

  I have to go and see him, said Sophie.

  Yes, go to him. We’ll come back for you, said her mother.

  Sophie left them behind as she went through the doors, into the woods. In the shadowy gloom, she saw nothing but trees, then a strewn place, like a basket of sticks, where the fire had gone through and reduced a vertical world to a horizontal one, punctuated with one or two black spruce. Darkness lay under the deadwood, under the bayonet branches; she sensed it as the hoot owl began, and though she realized she had been hearing its call throughout the afternoon, it took on the tone of a warning now. Whuuoo-hoo-hoo-hoo — whuoo whuoo. It was the ventilator. Felix was on the bed, and his body was being tricked by the antibiotics. He was no different than before: no better, no worse. Or so it seemed. Serena was at his side and she glanced up.

  You don’t have to be here, said Serena. I’ll stay with him.

  Sophie put her hand on Felix’s arm, as if for protection. Where was Grace — where had she gone?

  A crisply attired nurse came in, and Sophie stood to get out of her way.

  Checking vitals, she said, picking up Felix’s wrist with the hospital band on it to read his full name.

  The nurse inflated the cuff — whuff, whuff, whuff — and released the air slowly, a soft rush, listening to the stethoscope and observing the meter at the same time. When she was finished, she took off the cuff, and there was the ripping sound of Velcro. She went out of the room without speaking.

  Sophie had the feeling that the spruce and larches wanted her gone. Feathering of panic. Serena’s eyes bored into her; surely Serena could see Sophie was in a hummocky, wet spot, bordered by sedges and cattails, where her feet sank into muck. What would Felix have wanted if he’d been able to say? Felix would have wanted Sophie with him. Sophie was sure of it. Something was being trundled along the corridor — a cart or a gurney. Sophie’s hands were clutched; she pressed a thumb hard into the palm of her other hand.

  You’re just one in a long line, said Serena, as if she were talking to herself.

  What? said Sophie.

  He’s had a lot of women in his life. He’s never settled. He was with that one who’s with Simon now; Angela, I think her name is, no, Aurora. He was with her for a while, but it didn’t work out. She was ringing him every minute of the day. Felix, I can’t live without you. Serena raised her arms, let them fall.

  Sophie took a breath, let it out.

  I’ve seen it all, said Serena.

  Sophie felt something turn over inside. It was all she could do to study Felix’s hand, his limp hand, black against the white sheet. It was dim and chilly in this place, and there was the owl, again — whuoo, whuooooo. She made an effort to keep gripping her own hands together, so she wouldn’t lean across the bed and give Serena a slap.

  You’ve got some idea that you’re different, Serena went on. You’re a white girl. You thought you were special. Who said anyone wanted you —

  Sophie was too slow; she couldn’t formulate her thoughts. It was beginning to rain, and the hard, quick drops were cold enough to be sleet. There was no place to shelter from it.

  Who said anyone wanted you to come here and make such a mess? snapped Serena. Did anyone want you? No.

  Sophie could only keep her gaze fastened on Felix’s hand.

  I don’t know — you people think you’re saviours. But see what you’ve done. Look at what you’ve done.

  Serena was crying. That sound, that whimpering sound, was Serena. Sophie raised her eyes and saw how she rocked. Serena had held everything in while Grace was with them, and as soon as Grace left, she collapsed.

  Goddamn it, said Serena. You people.

  The sudden rain eased, but the wind came up and a few wintry leaves rasped noisily on a branch of wild oak. If Sophie could have let her tears come, she would have, but she wasn’t family; she didn’t belong. She put out her fingers toward Felix’s hand. Had she thought she was special?

  Go, cried Serena. Please.

  Sophie went out; she stood in the corridor with her back against the wall. She closed her eyes. There was nothing to be done, or there was nothing Sophie could do, anyway. When she opened her eyes, she saw Clifford, Felix’s brother.

  She wants someone to blame, Clifford said.

  Sophie fixed her eyes on her feet, her sandals. If she looked at him, his deep-set eyes, she would crumple.

  We’ll go out, maybe get you a cold drink, he said. You have to leave Serena by herself, and then she’ll realize what she’s said. She’s hurting. He sighed, rubbed his face. Felix, Serena — they’re close. But don’t believe a word of what she said.

  They passed the ward clerk reading his newspaper, went outside into the stifling heat, and drove to a place that sold cold drinks and ice cream. Dreamcake, the pink-lettered sign announced. Clifford was too large for the doll-sized chair, and sat backwards in it, propping his arms on its wrought-iron scrollwork.

  Drink up, he said.

  Sophie’s frosted glass was frigid to the touch.

  When was the last time you slept? You’ll make yourself sick, he said.

  He’d said the word that made them both quiet. Sick. Sophie concentrated on Felix, and the thoughts were so loud in her head she thought she’d spoken. She watched Clifford’s fingers moving on the glass tabletop and they could have been Felix’s fingers. Who said anyone wanted you to come here and make such a mess? The tabletop was scratched as if someone had drawn a knife across it several times. Just another in a long line. She sipped her lemon-coloured drink, put it down on the pink cupcake coaster. It was too much of an effort lifting the glass to her lips, setting it down, picking it up again. Felix didn’t love her, didn’t love her, didn’t love her. She had imagined it all. Felix, on his bed of ice. She was a white girl, thinking of herself as special. Serena said so. Yes, now she recognized the place, with the three sinkholes her father had told her about when she was small. Devils’ wash basins, he’d called them, pointing to the sour water at the bottom.

  Clifford finally drank the lemon drink because she offered it to him; he took her away. He said, I don’t care what Serena said, Felix is crazy about you. They pulled into the semicircular drive at the hospital. He said, almost sternly, Don’t forget that, and he left.

  Sophie was afraid to go back to where Felix was, though time was slipping, time was in the slender thread of water that came out of the tap in the washroom. Time slid into the inky vortex of the drain. She left the washroom, stood outside Felix’s room.

  Are you family? said one of the nurses. Only family are allowed in the ICU.

  Anyone could see that Sophie wasn’t family.
She went out the doors and along the corridor where it was less busy, though startlingly bright, and saw that dusk would fall soon, abruptly, and the windows would be blue black, reflecting her pale face, one in a long line of faces. Most of the dark water had seeped out of the sinkhole at which she gazed, the deepest, steep-sided, like a vessel, and lined with leaves darkened by winter and glazed by the quick rain that afternoon, as if a child had used glue and scraps of old paper. Sophie was so far from Felix, here in the woods. She just wanted to touch him, talk to him in the language only they knew, but she’d been kidding herself all along. He didn’t love her. She was the one who’d set things in motion, and it was because of her that he was in the hospital. Serena was right, had been right all along.

  Then Grace came with Joanna, and Grace pulled Sophie into her arms, into her sweet-smelling embrace. Together, the two women drew Sophie toward the ICU, but the light glared, and Sophie didn’t know if she wanted to be drawn along. She would have to go into it again. She stopped, closed her eyes, listened to the gurgling creek on the near side of the sinkhole. There might be enough light to make her way back if she started now.

  Grace whispered, Come. Soon they will bring him out of the coma.

  Sophie shook her head.

  Felix needs us, said Grace. Come.

  23

  ____

  FARIH, I AM GRATEFUL TO YOU FOR COMING, said Hassan.

  Well, there is a great deal to go over when it comes to this appeal, she said. Time is of the essence. Do you know anyone who might help us, preferably someone who is versed in shariah law?

  I will do my best to find someone.

  Farih was gorgeously attired in dark blue patterned with yellow flowers, and a head wrap made of satiny material, also dark blue. Sometimes Hassan wondered if women’s head wraps were made in the style of architectural wonders. The Gardens of Babylon. Would it be hard to keep such a thing on one’s head? But in the case of Farih Hussaini, he could be assured that it would stay on her head, even when she laughed and her head tipped back. His wife Tani would think otherwise, of course, intimidated by such an exotic creature, but Hassan knew Farih’s skills as a lawyer.