Short Fiction: That Friday

             

Ope is the centre of her world. I see her spinning around him, delighted. Her husband, Uncle Mike feels the same way but conceals it in his usual quiet manner. Still, I catch his smiling eyes watching Ope cross the room in his childish gait.  

They are friends of my family. They visit us most Sunday evenings. Ope arrived slightly over a year ago, when she and Uncle Mike had been married for about seven years. Seven long years, during which they both longed for Ope. I imagine that she sometimes looked outside the window, hoping to see him stroll in. I know she knelt often, asking He who gives fruits to unions not to exempt her. I know that while Ope tarried, she took counsel from many, including Google. Ope finally came. By their eighth marriage anniversary, a few weeks ago, he could walk and dance awkwardly. Though, he could only verbally congratulate them with meaningless utterances.  

Ope was once lauded by everyone as a calm child, lacking the cranky attitude of some his age. She was always close by to hear such comments. She always replied with a broad smile, her eyes misty. She was always short of words. Over a year old now, Ope is not a complete saint anymore. He walks slowly across a room, his diaper bulging behind, and seeks to destroy every item he comes across.  He knows neither glass nor wood. He enjoys the sound when either is dropped hard on the ground. The commands “leave it”, “Don’t touch that”, mean little to him. He would simply stare back at the commander and go ahead. When you attempt to retrieve an item from him, he tightens his grips and begins to cry. Many have said she should get a little cane for him. She would rather chop off her own head than do it. Uncle Mike would rather jump in a lake

. 

When they visit, everyone in our house is on the move, clearing Ope’s path. Every time, she watches delightedly, taking in all the new things her son can do.  The trio seems to have gotten over the other day’s incident so quickly. I cannot forget. Neither can other residents of my house. It was a Friday morning. Amidst a hearty laughter, she said “He is not afraid of anything”. Minutes later, the fearless boy out did himself. He thought his head was formidable against glass, but it was not. He wailed. There was plenty blood, but more panic. She gripped him while another tied a cloth around the broken part of his skull. Uncle Mike kept shouting “Hospital”. We ran out of the house and jumped in the car. We forgot our phones. If we did not forget this most crucial communication tool, the day might have turned out differently because we would have been informed.  

Uncle Mike drove wildly along the narrow road of my neighbourhood. Pedestrians leaped off. One angry woman shouted after the car “Is it a matter of life and death?” If only she knew. 

Ope stopped crying as Uncle Mike broke traffic rules. He just stared. She held him in her bosom, her right hand securing his neck from turning. The cloth around his head was not working, perhaps because it was tied by shivering hands. There was still blood. The only sound came from my thoughts. What if Ope dies? Surely, she would not eat for many days, if she would ever eat again.  Her eyes would become vacant and the nerve to smile would die.  She would quit her job and coil up forever in a corner of her house, Uncle Mike beside her.  The one who gives fruits to unions would have questions to answer from her. Day and night, she would question Him. If Ope dies, she would stop spinning. What is there for the earth to rotate around if the sun dies? I could see her hair standing in all directions on her head, because she would not visit a hair salon. She would not wear high-heeled shoes.  She might cajole herself out of suicide or she might not.  If Ope dies, there would be no other because the intimacy that makes children will be to her, an unthinkable sacrilege. Uncle Mike won’t dare. 

Ope dare not die. History would label him her murder. She would talk to herself and no other for many days. She would stare at his photograph until she can see nothing else. She would laugh for hours, her eyes bloodshot and her shoulders quaking in despair. Her kinky hair would get rough and tangled. Ringworms would draw maps on her skin. 

If Ope’s spirit should slip through the broken skull, the car would drive Uncle Mike. He would no longer drive it. He would wear clothes the wrong way and forget to tie his shoe laces. Ope cannot die. Can salt be recovered from boiling soup? 

The traffic at the hospital’s entrance was unusual. I wondered if every house in Abuja had an Ope with a broken head.  Uncle Mike wriggled the car into the premises. It was while we stood frantically at the entrance of the grand hospital building, wondering why it was not business as usual, that we heard the bomb shell of the bombing. The United Nations building in Central Area had been attacked about an hour earlier.  There were deaths but many more where injured. Uncle Mike kept pacing with his hands akimbo.  She solicited help from the helpless woman who had briefed us. The woman had said that her brother worked in the bombed building and she was yet to find him. Ope’s mother did not seem to hear that part of the woman’s narration. She kept saying to the woman “What do I do? see blood” 

Ope began to cry again and we suspected his head was aching. The impact of the hit on his head had become a steady beat of pain. For a moment I stared at the drips of his blood that formed dark-red, circular patterns on the tiled floor.  I felt nauseous. Panic filled the hospital’s grounds. It occupied more space than the many people did. It was accompanied by terror and uncertainty. They filled the hospital’s grounds. They possessed the women, causing them to stand with their hands on their heads or let their blouses slip off their shoulders. They possessed the men and caused them to stand still with their hands folded across their chests, their eyes fixed but on nothing. They caused people to ask ridiculous questions.  “Have they brought anyone wearing a blue buba and black shoes?” They stole the smiles that should be the case when people make new acquaintances.  

Uncle Mike and the two other members of my family went off in search of help.  I remained with Ope and his mother. She emitted fright.  Her eyes were red and misty. Most of her dress was stained with blood. I patted Ope’s foot and spoke to him softly. Her gaze was on him as I spoke, and though my words failed with him, they pacified her. She kept nodding. 

 We had been standing at the hospital’s main entrance. There were no seats in the crowded reception and even if there were, it was hot and stuffy. The fears of the relatives and acquaintances of people who had a reason to be at the United Nations building filled the air. I watched her move Ope’s weight from one foot to another. My legs were aching to.  A woman who seemed to appear from nowhere, began to vocally wonder what she had done to deserve this. She did so in a rather loud voice. Ope’s mother joined her by shaking her head and I could only think of the many instances when she let Ope go untamed.  In a flash, the woman threw herself on the floor and sat up on it, her legs spread out in front of her. Eyes fell on her. Ears joined the eyes. For a while there was silence around the hospital’s grounds as those afar off stretched their necks to get a glimpse of the latest show. The woman’s scarf was off her head now and I could see braided hair. She looked around, her eyes on nothing in particular. 

“He died a fool. I married a fool” she said. 

The sun shone bright now and I had to squint to watch her. She spoke with the heavy force of the Yoruba accent behind her words. I guess she spoke in English for our benefit. 

“Baba Aladura warned him never to resume at the office before twelve noon but he would not listen; now his ears have heard a loud noise that they would never recover from. It has all come to an end. He killed himself. What a pity. He saw boiling oil and jumped inside it. What a shame” she continued.  
 

Pity filled my eyes in form of hot liquid. Her hands were on her head and her body quaked. Tears ran sluggishly down her face. I could see the pain that caused her to label her husband a guilty victim. I could see the affection that made her so angry. It was such that would go all the way to ensure a loved one’s safety. The next day, I too would be angry when government officials would be reported to have “condemned” the attack on the UN building. My anger would rise when the police would claim to have the matter under control. What sought of affection was theirs? Such as would set the loved one at liberty to go wild and crack his skull. I glanced at Ope’s mother. 

Uncle Mike and the rest returned with obvious information: no hospital personnel were available to attend to us at that moment. They would only pay attention if you offered to donate blood. They had more than a handful of cracked skulls and blood licks already. 

The only nurse patient enough to listen to them hurriedly advised that we visit another hospital. We would not have needed her counsel before we took that alternative but for the traffic. The exit gate of the hospital had been coined off to serve ambulances bringing in victims of the blast. They ran in with fury and exited in like manner. Every other vehicle, entering or exiting, went through the entrance gate. Many had blocked the way with their vehicles as they flew out of them in search of their folks.  Security officials waded through the crowd at the reception and around the hospital, carrying A4 sized papers with vehicle registration numbers written on them, asking “Please who owns the vehicle with this number”  

It would have taken us an hour at the least to drive the bleeding boy out of the hospital. Time enough for many bad things to happen. The blast that caused this turmoil took less than a minute. She sat on the floor; Ope was still in her arms. She would not let anyone else take him. No one attempted to. Not even Uncle Mike. I could see that she was resisting the urge to wail and roll on the floor, like some women around us will when their questions about their husbands’ whereabouts are answered at the morgue. A woman close by was telling another:  

“I have been calling his number but it is not going through.” 

“He would be fine,” the other woman kept assuring her. 

A week later I would spot them in the news footage of the commiseration service for the departed victims. They would be wearing black clothes and crying.  News reporters found their way into the premises. I watched as they filmed. Some of them took pictures. A man was granting an interview, another was picking a fight with a reporter. I could tell the news headlines of the following day already, though I still wondered how Ope’s episode will end. A news crew found the spot beside us suitable for the reporter’s recording.  The reporter was too neat for the part in a blue, well starched khaftan and marching cap. I imagined that he was in the midst of some celebration and then was called unexpectedly to duty, like the rest of us.  He held a microphone and stood before a camera man. At the signal of another, he began his oration. I only moved my eyes from the reporter to Ope and back when the reporter said:  

“Abuja, Nigeria’s head indeed has been struck hard this morning. Time will tell what the consequences will be.” 

While I thought about this and the many possible outcomes of Ope’s broken head and the different stories time could tell, Uncle Mike decided we abandon the car and find help for Ope. We took off towards the gate, with our victim, wading through the sea of people in search of theirs.