Eight
‘What of your card?’ the nurse asked.
We were at the Government Hospital Accident and
Emergency Unit.
‘What card?’ I asked back.
‘The one they gave you when you made your
deposit.’
‘We didn’t make any deposit.’
‘OK, hurry up so I can arrange for a doctor to see
him soon.’ She pointed her chin at my father, who was lying on a
wooden bench with my mother standing beside him. ‘Go and pay then
come back and fill out the forms.’
What was she talking about?
‘Just walk down the hall,’ she explained. ‘Turn
right and walk to the end of the corridor, then turn left, and
you’ll see a blue door. Three doors from the blue door, you’ll see
another door that is wide open. Go inside, then look to your left.
You’ll see where other people are queuing up. That’s the cashier.
Pay your deposit and bring the receipt back here.’
Deposit? I looked at Mr Nwude. He looked at the
nurse.
‘Madam, please, this is an emergency,’ Mr Nwude
said. ‘Let the doctor have a look at him now and we’ll bring the
money by morning.’
She almost laughed.
‘Madam,’ I begged, ‘please, first thing tomorrow
morning, we’ll bring the money.’
She folded her arms and looked back at me. I
wondered if the feminine of brute was brutess.
‘Nurse, please . . .’
She patted a pile of forms on all four sides until
every single sheet was perfectly aligned. We pleaded and beseeched.
She strolled to the other end of her work space and started
attending to other matters. We beckoned my mother. Reluctantly, she
left her husband’s side and leaned on the counter.
‘Please, my daughter,’ she said in a mournful,
motherly voice. ‘My husband is very ill and we need to get him some
medical attention as soon as possible. As my son was telling you,
by tomorrow, we’ll bring the money. I can’t lie to you.’
Pity clouded the nurse’s face.
‘Madam . . .’
‘Please . . . please,’ my mother begged, shedding
some tears for emphasis.
‘Madam, please. It’s not as if the doctors and
nurses here are heartless. We’ve just learnt to be realistic that’s
all.’
She explained that after a patient was admitted, it
became almost impossible to discontinue treatment if it turned out
that the patient could not pay. The doctors and nurses were now
tired of contributing from their own pockets towards the welfare of
strange patients.
We rushed back to my father’s side and held a quick
consultation. My father did not conceal an emergency stash inside
his mattress. All the banks were closed. There was nobody we knew
in Umuahia who could afford to loan cash readily.
‘What do we do now?’ my mother asked. Her face was
drenched with worry.
We carried my father back to the car and went
searching. The Ndukaego Hospital told us that they were very sorry.
The King George Hospital promised us that we were wasting our time.
The Saints of Mount Calvary Hospital assured us that there was
nothing they could do under the current circumstances. My mother
lost her mind.
‘Hewu! God, please help me! My husband is
dying o! My husband is dying!’
‘Mummy, please.’ For the billionth time, I
confirmed that my father still had a pulse. ‘Mummy, please calm
down.’
She continued babbling to God.
‘Let’s try another hospital,’ I said to Mr
Nwude.
A light bulb flashed above his head.
‘My wife’s brother has an in-law whose aunty’s
husband is a senior consultant in the Government Hospital,’ Mr
Nwude said. ‘Maybe we can go and ask if they can help.’
We sped to the wife’s brother’s house. He gave us
directions to the in-law’s house. At the in-law’s house, my mother
flung herself against the floor and uttered a cry that shook the
louvers. The in-law got dressed and accompanied us to the aunty’s
house. At times like this, I had no grudges at all about Umuahia
being such a pocket-sized town.
After assuring us that the hospital would have no
qualms about shoving my father out the next day if we did not
produce the cash, Senior Consultant Uncle gave us a signed note
addressed to the hospital emergency ward. We sped back to the
Government Hospital, flung the note across the desk to the nurse,
and got my father attended to pronto. Thank God for
‘long-leg’.
‘He’s had a stroke,’ the doctor declared.
He said that my father’s blood pressure was too
high, that he was in a coma. He could not give any definite
prognosis, but gave instructions for my father to be
admitted.
The hospital lift was not working, so I and Mr
Nwude carried my father up via the staircase to the medical ward on
the third floor. After every few steps, we would lean on the wall
and pant before continuing.
At the ward, some junior nurses took my father from
us, while a militant senior informed us that we could not go in.
Visiting time was over.
‘You can sleep in the car park if you want to spend
the night,’ she insisted. ‘This is not a hotel.’
Mr Nwude dashed back downstairs, retrieved the
senior consultant’s note from the nurse at reception, and brought
it to the ward. The militant nurse changed her mind.
‘You can spend the night, but it would have to be a
private room.’
A more expensive alternative, but we did not
mind.
My father’s room reeked of disinfectant. The walls
were stained, the bed frame was rusty, and the lumpy mattress had a
broad depression right in the middle. There was neither bedsheet
nor pillow.
‘You’re supposed to bring you own bedding,’ the
nurse chastised.
After my father was secure in bed, oxygen mask
clamped over his face, blood samples drawn from his veins, tubes
inserted through his nostril and wrist, catheter through his penis,
Mr Nwude was ready to leave.
‘Thank you very much for all your help,’ my mother
said to him. ‘We really appreciate it.’
‘My pleasure, madam,’ he replied. ‘I’ll come again
tomorrow to find out how he’s doing.’
‘Mummy, why don’t you go home with Mr Nwude and let
me stay the night with Daddy?’
My mother took a seat at her husband’s bedside and
shook her head firmly. The resolve on her face was as solid as
Gibraltar.
I saw Mr Nwude off to the car park. It was not
until he drove off that I noticed. Lo and behold, there were people
covered in wrappers and lying on mats in many corners. The nurse
was not being sarcastic when she suggested that we could sleep
there.
All through the night, the mosquitoes came riding
in on horseback. The males hummed shrill love songs into our ears,
the females sucked blood from our exposed arms and feet. Tired of
swatting the air and scratching her limbs, my mother shut the
windows against them. Minutes later, we were almost at the point of
asphyxiation. She opened them again. The mosquitoes were clearly
the landlords. But at some point, we must have set aside our
troubles and fallen asleep. A young nurse shook us awake in the
morning. I rubbed my eyes and scratched at a red swelling on the
back of my hand.
‘You should bring a mosquito net for your father,’
the nurse suggested. ‘And bring a fan for yourselves. Even if NEPA
takes the light, as long as there is fuel, the hospital generator
is on from midnight till 4 a.m..’
‘The doctor who is supposed to see him,’ my mother
asked, ‘what time is he coming this morning?’
‘He can come in anytime.’
The nurse handed me a sheet of paper. I studied the
handwritten list. The items included a pack of cotton wool, bottle
of Izal disinfectant, pack of needles, pack of syringes, roll of
plaster, disposable catheter bags, bleach, gloves . . .
‘What is this?’ I asked.
‘Those are the things we need for your father’s
care,’ she replied. ‘Any item you don’t find at the hospital
pharmacy, you’ll have to go out and buy it from somewhere
else.’
The list even included intravenous fluids!
‘Does the hospital not provide these items? Are
they not part of the bill?’
‘Every patient is expected to buy their own.’
‘Let me see,’ my mother said.
I gave the list to her.
‘So what would have happened if he didn’t have any
relatives here with him?’ I asked. ‘Who would have had to buy these
things?’
‘We never admit any patient who is not accompanied
by relatives.’
Irritation had assumed full control of her voice.
The last thing I wanted was for someone whom I had entrusted with
my father’s life to be angry with me over such a minor issue. My
mother also seemed to share this thought. She handed back the list
and surreptitiously poked my thigh. That was my cue to shut
up.
The nurse tugged at some wires and peeked under my
father’s clothes before exiting the room. As soon as the door
clacked shut, my mother turned to me.
‘Kings, please hurry up and go to the house and get
the cheque booklet for our joint account. It’s in my trunk box.
Bring it immediately so that I can sign some cheques for you to
take to the bank and withdraw some money.’
‘I’d like to wait and see the doctor before I
go.’
‘Please, go now. You know they admitted us on
trust.’
On my way out, I walked past a nurse who was
pushing a squeaking wheelchair. The wheelchair was stacked with
green case files.
The queue at the bank went all the way out the
front door and round the back of the building. If only my parents
would stop being conservative and transfer their accounts to one of
the more efficient New Generation banks. Thereafter, I went
straight to Ola’s house. Apart from all the questions I was eager
to ask her, she needed to know that my father was ill. Plus, Ola’s
hugs were like medicine, and every muscle in my body was
sore.
As usual, Ezinne was pleased to see me. She
unlocked the glass door and hugged me warmly. I waited in the
living room while she went inside to inform her sister about my
presence. Seconds later, she returned.
‘Brother Kings, Ola is not at home.’
I peered at her.
She stood there, pulling at her neatly woven
cornrows and twisting her foot from side to side with her eyes
fixed on the floor.
‘Ezinne, go back inside and tell Ola that I want to
see her.’
She obeyed.
Ten minutes later, Ola came out dressed in an adire
boubou and with an expression on her face like an irritated
queen’s. She was accompanied by one of her friends from school. The
girl bore some coquettish-sounding name which I had forgotten.
Either Thelma . . . or Sandra . . . or one of those sorts of names.
They greeted me and sat in the chairs opposite.
‘My father was admitted into hospital last night,’
I said. ‘He had a stroke.’
‘Stroke? How come? How is he?’
‘I’m on my way back to the hospital. I just wanted
to see you first. How are you?’
I thought she might offer to come along with me.
Suddenly, she became icy.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied in a voice that was well
below zero.
‘I was surprised when I went to your school
yesterday and they told me that you were in Umuahia.’
‘Yes, I am.’
Her answer sounded a bit off point. Nevertheless, I
accepted it. She was wearing the same Dolce & Gabbana
wristwatch of the other day. The former red strap had been swapped
for a brown one that matched her Fendi slippers. Ola looked glum
and rigid, like a pillar of salt.
‘Ola, are you OK?’
Her companion flicked some dirt - noisily - from
one of her red acrylic talons. Ola took a deep breath.
‘Kingsley, I think we should both go our separate
ways,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s no future in
this relationship.’
She spoke so fast, with her words bumping into each
other. Yes, I heard the individual words, but I genuinely could not
make out any meaning from what she had said.
‘Ola, what are you saying?’ I asked.
The other girl hijacked the conversation.
‘What essatly do you not understand? She has told
you her mind and it’s your business whether you assept it or
not.’
This tattling termagant, like many of her
compatriots from Edo in the Mid-West region of Nigeria, had a
mother tongue induced speech deficiency that prevented her from
putting the required velar emphasis on her X sounds. They always
came out sounding like an S. I ignored the idiot.
‘Ola, please let’s go somewhere private and talk .
. . please.’
Ola tilted slightly forward as if she were about to
stand.
‘Abeg no follow am go anywhere, jare,’ the
termagant restrained her in her more typical Pidgin English. ‘Abi
him hol’ your life?’
Ola sat ramrod straight again.
The termagant appeared to be the commandant of this
mission. Abruptly, she stood up and nudged Ola. Their task was
complete. They had dropped the atomic bomb. Ola stood. I wondered
why she was allowing this Neanderthal to control her like
this.
‘Kingsley, I need to go out now.’
I bent my knees towards the floor and reached out
for her hand. ‘Ola, please . . . at least let’s go into the room
and talk . . .’
I thought I saw a twinge of pain in her eyes, but
it passed by so quickly that I may have been mistaken. She turned
and walked quickly from the living room. Shortly after, she came
out dressed in a brown dress, with the termagant following behind
her. The scent of their combined perfumes invaded the atmosphere.
Each molecule stank of good money. Without looking at me, they
walked straight out of the house. I followed like an ass.
‘Ola . . .’ I called. ‘Ola.’
She did not even look my way. Any passerby could
have easily mistaken me for a schizophrenic conversing with
invisible KGB agents.
‘Ola, please just give me a bit more time.’
With me lurking at her side, they stood by the main
road and hailed a passing okada.
‘Empire Hotel!’ the termagant shouted.
The daredevil driver did a maniacal U-turn and
stopped with his engine still running. Ola climbed on as close to
the driver as was physically possible, leaving just enough space
for the termagant. When the driver had perceived that they had
settled as comfortably as the laws of space would allow, he revved
his engine and zoomed off.