WE ARE ABLE Episode 15
My mother’s case was heard in court. She was pronounced guilty, despite all her pleas. I didn’t hear her but my aunt made effort to interprete every bit of her speech to me:
“Mrs John Hannah, can you tell this court what you were doing in Olabode’s room at exactly 2:30am on the fifteenth of July of this year, 2000?” the plaintiff said.
“I–I was sleeping in my room with my daughter when she woke me up to say that she had a dream.”
“And what was the dream?” she asked.
“She said she saw a woman calling Bode’s name. We were shocked so we rushed to his room to check his well-being. It was strange to us when we didn’t find him in there.”
“Mrs Hannah, we want you to cooperate with this court. Can you tell us why you scattered his room?”
“We were looking for him desperately.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because of the dream my daughter had. More so, I was the one responsible for his welfare; his mother isn’t living with us in the house.”
“Is that why you want to kill your step daughter?” the plaintiff challenged her. “Stepmothers like you are supposed to be put to death by hanging!”
When I saw my aunt’s sign, I did what my mouth could do best–screaming. All heads turned around at me.
I saw their mouths moving. Two security men came close to me. My aunt obstructed them. She pleaded with them on my behalf. They understood her. She must have declared my status to them.
“My lord, this is a wicked woman,” the plaintiff said, pointing at my mother. “She doesn’t deserve to be living among human beings.”
“Enough!” the judge shunned the plaintiff. “Are you the judge? Do you want to dictate judgment to me or what are you trying to say, Barrister Tinu?”
“I am very sorry my lord,” she bowed her head in respect.
I gave them all some covetous look. How I wish I was the one having those wigs on my head; that woman, Toyosi, would no more be among human beings. She would be right behind bars for life.
I remembered the proverb my class teacher always told me those days in sign language; if a farmer doesn’t catch a thief on time, the thief would catch the farmer. Such was the case here–Toyosi was the real criminal here, not my mother.
John was called out to say what he knew about it all. He spoke and my aunt interpreted. We were sitting at the left hand corner of the hall, at the back. Toyosi was leering at us from time to time. Those wicked eyes, I just wished they fell off their sockets.
John grabbed the big bible with a hand. He began to pour his swears on it. I was saying amen inside me because I knew he would tell some lies with his confession.
“I am John Adegbile by name, husband of Hannah Omorodion. This woman is a wicked soul. Right from the time that she knew I have a second child from another woman, she has been trying to kill her son. I don’t know why she is as jealous as this. She also has her own child, so I don’t see the reason for her jealousy.”
“Did you marry the second woman in a ceremonial way or how?” the plaintiff asked.
“Em–not really. It was a mistake; she got pregnant for me and I have to take the child from her. This woman Hannah accepted the child in good faith then, but now she wanted to get rid of him by all means.”
My eyes were filled with tears as my father spoke. If I had pebbles I would hail them at him; cobbles would be better, or even a big rock. What a wicked father!
“This is not their first time of attempting to kill my son,” John said in a critical manner. His veins had wrinkled his forehead, giving him the outlook of a caricature. His broken teeth was made the cynosure of my eyes. His toothgums looked exactly like a thick black ‘evostic’ gum.
“You don’t mean it!” the plaintiff put up a serious face. “So tell us something about the past murder attempt.”
“She has once sent her daughter, Rose to kill my innocent Bode on his bed while having a nap. Rose held the knife over his neck, about to rip off his neck when my innocent boy thumped up from sleep.”
Everyone in the court opened his mouth wide at his confession. I believed many had already begun to pass judgment on us. We were just two, myself and my mum, but we have many judges already.
My aunt could no more interprete for me at the back of the court hall. She broke into tears.
“That was not all, my lords,” my father said. “She sent her daughter the second time to hang my son in the air. Her daughter gripped my son at the neck and raised him high up until his legs couldn’t make contact with the floor anymore. Bode my son almost died that time, and since then he had lost his health. Now my son had to live with inhalers in his pockets every day of his…” Father had broken into tears.
“Do you have anything more to say, Mr John?” they asked my father.
“Yes sir,” he said, bobbing his head like an agama lizard. “Please can this court help me ask my wife the reason why she was not beside me on bed that night, because for the past twelve years of our marriage now, we have always been sleeping together at night on the same bed? Can this court also help me ask her what she was doing with a juju calabash I saw with her?”
“Can you hear that, Mrs Hannah? What were you doing with a calabash at night? Why were you not on bed beside your husband that night? Please answer us because the time is not on our side!”
Mother held the top of the dock with her hands. She knew there was nothing to say to get anyone convinced. She knew she was going to be declared guilty in the end.
“Madam, talk!” they shouted at her. “Or is he lying against you?”
“It is true,” she said amidst tears, nodding her head.
“So madam, do you now accept that you are guilty?”
“No,” she said. “I am innocent.”
“Keep shut, woman!” the jury shunned her. “You may not speak anymore woman. The truth is established already. Who else has something to say?”
When I saw the interpretation, I raised my hand as well as my aunt too. We both had some things to say.
“Only one person among you shall speak,” the judge said. My aunt asked me to go. I began to move towards the front. My aunt followed me. The judge spoke some words in anger, but I didn’t hear him. He struck a hammer against his desk. I wonder whether he was a carpenter. He must have been enraged that my aunt was following me. He needed just one person and not two.
Every mouth in the court was wide agape at our effrontery and defiance. I wonder what was wrong with them all. Two security men in police uniform accosted us. My aunt spoke something into their ears. They passed the message to the judge. I knew what the message was–they had just notified him that I was deaf mute and my aunt was only there with me to do the interpretation.
A policeman pointed at a bible to me. It was lying fallow on a dusty pulpitlike woodwork. I picked it up and dropped it back to give me enough allowance to express myself in sign language. Then I began to do the sign.
I saw the hilarious expression on everybody’s face. They seemed to be screaming. My aunt later told me what they were saying;
We didn’t ask you to do choreography for us
Is she conducting a music or what?
Is she insane?
It was their last expression that got me angry when my aunt was relaying them to me after.
After all I said to defend my mother that day, she ended jailed for two years with hard labour. I rolled on the floor and hit my head against the hard wood of the leg of a pew. Blackout!
*******TO BE CONTINUED*******
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