We are Able Episode 39 – 41

We are Able Episode 39

It was not quite long when school resumed for those who went to school. Bode’s parent began to find it very difficult sending him to school. Biodun and Laide had no problem at all. The taxi was back to pick them up every day.
I sat down thinking deep. Will this year pass by gradually without seeing my mother? I thought. How could life be so cruel like this? I made up my mind to see my father once more. I don’t think he would listen to me. He was already in deeper thought than thinking of a way to get my mother out. He would need money to bribe the Chief Warders and all the police involved in extending my mother’s jail term.
I would do anything to see my mother again, but who could help? My mind went straight to Moses, that young man who helped me cross the express road on my graduation day two years back. I remembered I had crammed his home address, maybe I should just visit him and tell him everything, I thought.
I had saved some amount of money, so I would not have problem getting transport down there, though it was far from Ejigbo where I resided. I wrote something on paper and decided to pay him a visit.
Toyosi had taken some of her husband’s property to a market to sell them off. She made the decision as a punitive measure for her husband’s refusal to respond to her letter, in which she told him to send her some money. Toyosi would tell her husband that she was forced to do that when hunger came knocking hard at the door of her stomach. Her husband would be around the next month and she would return to him.
I wrote the address in my head down, the home address of Moses who helped me cross the road that day:
Immaculate Moses; Plot 5, Estate Road, Lekki.

I also wrote all information down regarding how to get to the exact place. I would be showing the paper to anyone I come across so that I wouldn’t miss my way.
John had started working as a labourer for a factory. He would help them offload some things from large trucks, just to make sure that he kept body and soul together. At first, he said he wasn’t going to do that, but when the hands of hunger began to beckon on us, he had to do it.
That morning, I took off. I didn’t want to leave late, so that I could return home early enough before any of Toyosi or John would come. Bode had also gone to school too, though he was still owing the school fee for the term.
I didn’t find it very difficult locating the place where Moses lived. I met someone and showed him the letter. When he saw it, he waved his head at me and spoke. I made signs to him to say that I couldn’t speak. The man understood me quite well, so he wrote it for me:

Immaculate Moses the son of that headmaster is no more living in this place. They have relocated to their new house since last six months
Where is their new house? I wrote back.

It is in Festac, but I don’t know the address

I bowed down to thank the man as I began to depart. It was still 12pm then, so I had plenty of time, I thought. Lekki was a very beautiful place I didn’t want to leave. I roamed the streets and most of the time got tapped by people to tell me that I should leave the road. Many car owners had peeped out of their windows to ail insults at me, but I was not bothered since I didn’t hear a thing.
At last, around 4pm I began to make back for my home. I knew where to get the right buses, so I did, but I was the only person in the bus. For some times, I remained the only one as the bus conductor kept shouting to call in passengers.

Soon, the bus was half-filled. I began to doze off as the air blew its cool on me.
When I realized myself again, I was kneeling beside a traditional man dressed like a cultist. I was carrying a big calabash. Five other people were kneeling down too, with calabashes on their head. I had had about money ritual before, so I guessed that was what we were there for.
I couldn’t think at all. I was just looking at them like a zombie. The man took turn to ask each victim some questions one after the other, which I perceived they were answering. They fell down dead as soon as they had answered those questions.
I was still on my knees when they brought a young boy in. They made him kneel down too. His face seemed familiar. Yes! He was one of the bullies who sneaked to my school to torture us. He was attending a school for normal people in Ejigbo. It was just a fence that was demarcating us. His name was Austin.
Austin had even succeeded in raping some of our girls. When he attempted to rape me back then, I caught him aback, grabbing him by the neck. I pushed him away and ran. Austin had been expelled from his school the day he raped a blind girl called Amina. Amina was the most gentle girl back then. Austin crept to our school through the hole they had drilled into the wall. Amina, who was walking towards the toilet with her walking stick, was gripped by Austin. She was raped to unconsciousness.
Austin was caught by some of the deaf people in my school, then he was expelled.

The kidnappers turned around to face me first since I was the one who was here before Austin. They began to shake a gourd over my head. I didn’t hear a sound, but I knew it was making a sound because mother had told me about it while we were watching a Yoruba Nollywood movies many years ago. She had told me that people could be used for money rituals but I laughed over it. Now I would be a sample, perhaps a scapegoat.
My heart beat fast but I didn’t move since my external organs were all numb. They were talking to me, but I was speechless. Following the movement of their lips, I knew what they wanted—my name. Everything in me was willing to tell them my name, but how would I do it? I tried and tried to voice it out through my mouth, despite the fact that I knew I couldn’t do it. It didn’t just work, then I put my hand to use. They were confused with the way I gesticulated, but it gave them the clue that I was deaf and dumb.
“Speak,” they said in their dialect which I understood by lip-reading. They gave up.
The kidnappers turned to Austin who was looking directly at me. He was in school uniform, perhaps he was just returning from school when he was kidnapped. Austin fastened his eyeballs on me to the extent that they suspected that we knew each other. They asked him if he knew me and he nodded his head in the affirmative.
“Ki ni oruko e?” they asked him and I understood by watching their lips. I knew that they were asking for my name from Austin. The boy didn’t hesitate before saying, “Rosa Rosa!” My eyes were fixed at his lips and I knew he was pronouncing my nickname and not my real name. I was bitter because I wished he would pronounce my real name—the spell was really on me. Only my close friends in school would know me as Rose and not an intruder like him.
The men smiled and stood before me, shouting my nickname. They touched my head with the local timbrel in form of a long gourd and chorused my nickname, but nothing happened to me.
They were surprised.
They went back to Austin and asked for his name. He easily told them his name and they put the gourd over his head. He fell flat and passed on. They laughed–a wicked laughter.
They came back to me and recited my nickname over again. I was unmoved. They were contemplating on setting me free, but one of them said they should ask me for my name again, perhaps I was pretending that I was dumb earlier. They asked me in both English and Yoruba, but I couldn’t respond, though I made the sign language to them as a reply.
They sweated. I wondered why they couldn’t slaughter me directly with a knife, perhaps that would not produce the kind of money they wanted, I thought. All my spirit wanted to tell them what my name was and I just desired to speak at once, but I couldn’t. They were amazed when they saw tears flowing. They asked me why I was weeping. I perceived what they asked and waved my hand over my mouth to show my willingness to speak.
After trying several times to speak without success, they gave up on me, but I still had the urge to say my name. I shook my fingers in a way to show that I needed a pen to write my name. They understood me. I remembered I had a pen with me earlier into which my name was already written on a rolled paper. I scrambled for the biro in my pocket with my left hand but couldn’t find it. I swapped the hand I was using to carry the big calabash from the right to the left so that I could use the right hand to search my right pocket now. I did but didn’t feel the biro there. Then I pointed towards Austin who was lying lifeless beside his bag. They understood me.
Hastily, they ransacked his bag and came up with a pen and a paper. I would now write down my name and then, they would call it and I would fall dead. I knew I would fall dead but I couldn’t just control my desire for death at that moment.
I held the pen and scribbled something into the paper. The ink wasn’t flowing. I tried hard but it wouldn’t just flow. The men were scared. They ordered me to leave immediately, leading me through a path. I had to find my way home.
It was already too late for me, so the main gate of our house had been shut. Toyosi and John didn’t even care about my whereabouts. They were sleeping soundly in the house already. I hit the gate hard for minutes. It was Taiba and Mrs Omotayo who came to open it for me. The latter turned around and left when she saw me; only Taiba remained. I shook with shock as the horror of that day came rocking my brain again.

Episode 40

It was on a Sunday, I had the chance to play with my friends, Biodun and Laide, all because Mrs Omotayo their mother had been to the fellowship. She even invited Toyosi and John that day and they had all gone.

Bode didn’t go with them. He had a friend, Obinna, who often come home with him from school. Obinna came that day to play with Bode. They would scatter the whole house and expect me to tidy things up. Obinna was a bit older than Bode. He was also a troublesome type. I wondered why Obinna didn’t see things the way I see it. He would also join hands with Bode to make fun of us, calling us several names which I couldn’t hear.
Obinna cut many different species of leaves and stuck them into his mouth all at once to mock me. I sounded my gibberish to him as a warning and he laughed. I didn’t know where the suggestion was coming from—I just felt like going in to take a metallic object with which I would bash his head. I controlled the urge, because the sermon we heard in church just in the morning that Sunday spoke about endurance.
Obinna came to Biodun and knocked him on the head. Biodun lost balance and fell. I rushed to the scene and pushed Obinna aside as I began to raise Biodun up, but then, Bode had tied Laide’s wheelchair to a pole. He was laughing.
I was fed up.

Taiba was inside the house, sleeping. She was the type one would wake for an hour without success. How was I even going to tell her that Bode and Obinna were dealing with her mistress’ children? Even if I wrote it down, she would not be able to read it because she was a stark illiterate.
I challenged them to a fight, but they beat me easily. Obinna’s bone was stronger than I had expected. Sometimes back, my mother told me that the Ibo people were strong because of the Akpu they eat frequently. Back then, I didn’t believe her, but now no one taught me to do so. Even Obinna alone would have beaten me up, let alone the two of them.
As Obinna sat on me and kept punching me, Bode came with a pack of sand, which he had gathered at the backyard with a packer. They were going to pack them into my mouth. I held my mouth tight as Bode came close. My two hands were behind my back, being held strongly by Obinna. Bode tried to force my mouth opened, but it was very tight for him.

I turned my face around and saw Biodun approaching. He must have been hearing my groans and he thought he could come and suffer with me. Laide was shaking like an epileptic patient on the wheelchair where she was fixed. If only she could move now, she would have wheeled herself to me also, to avenge me. I was cold with self-pity. What wrong have I done to merit this? I thought silently as Bode eventually made it and put some sand into my mouth. I thought I was going to die.
I stared into the sun which was already at the west. Who would help now? Help does not come from the west or east or south, I thought. Then I remembered God. If only he could save me once more, just the way he did me three days back in the hands of the kidnappers.
To my shock, Obinna rose swiftly and rushed away, as well as Bode. They collided with Biodun who was standing by. They were off to the gate. Shockingly, Taiba fluttered out of the apartment too and went after them. Maybe they saw her rushing out, that was why they took to their heels so that she wouldn’t beat them up, but no, I was wrong. Biodun too was trying to flee. Why was he trying to flee when he had no eyes to see that the others had fled? I coughed out sand and began to rise. I had managed not to let the sand get into my throat.

I turned my eyes backward and saw Laide. She seemed to have died on her wheelchair. I was shocked. What could have happened? Why was she not able to move her body again? I asked myself. I was confused about which of them I should first attend to—Biodun on the floor or Laide who seemed to have collapsed on her wheelchair. I rushed for Laide first, believing that Biodun would get up from the floor soon.
I shook her but she didn’t respond at all. I rushed into the room to get salt which I poured into a bowl of water. I poured some water into her throat and sprinkled some on her body and she coughed back to life. I loosed her wheelchair from the pole she was tied unto and pushed it close to Biodun. I tapped him to life too. He raised his head and I let him lay it on Laide’s lap. They were restless.
I thought Taiba would return from the chase of Bode and Obinna which I thought she was out doing, but twenty minutes had come and gone, yet she couldn’t. I rushed into Biodun’s apartment and made a lukewarm tea. I sat before them and began to spoonfeed them one after the other. Just then, the gate opened and three people entered in a rush—my father, Toyosi and Mrs Omotayo.
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…continuation

They fastened their eyes on me as they looked towards us. Just then, I felt a vibration and they scattered different direction. Even Biodun’s head fell from Laide’s lap. I was the only one who didn’t have a clue.

The whole world had turned upside down. Some people rushed into our compound and rushed out again. Toyosi had signed to me to ask where Bode was and I told her that he rushed out some moments back. Toyosi didn’t think twice before jumping into the street herself. Mrs Omotayo was in tears as she saw her restless children. She somehow managed to ask me where Taiba was and I rolled my index fingers before her. She understood what I meant—that she had run away too.
John was just roaming around the house. He was confused. It was as though he would run mad if Bode wouldn’t return to the house. I thought the end of the world had come, going by what I saw; cracks on our walls. A window pane had even fallen from our own apartment.

Mrs Omotayo was scared to go inside her apartment, so also was John. They feared that the building could collapse on their heads.
Toyosi returned late into the evening, around 10pm and asked my father where Bode was. As a matter of fact, the two of them asked each other same question at the same time. They put their hands on their heads and wept.
I didn’t know if my deaf and dumb status was a plus or a minus. Till late in the night, I still couldn’t get a clue of what was really happening. For the rest of them, it seemed they now understood, having sat round their rechargeable radio, listening to the breaking news there.

Biodun and Laide had also fully regained their consciousness. He was the one who wrote a note to me to tell me what actually was going on, yet there were three able people in the house unable to do that.

That night, Biodun just walked up to where I was standing and gave it to me. Then immediately, he turned back and began to go to where her mother was sitting. Mrs Omotayo must have seen him come to me, but she had nothing to say now. Afterall, I was the one who fed her dying children with tea a while ago, something Taiba was not around to do. Who knows if they would have died if I hadn’t done that? I thought.

I opened Biodun’s note and began to read; writing in Braille was such a wonderful type of writing that you wouldn’t need light for while reading. I traced the letters with my fingers and got the message in the dark.

A news from the radio says that the armies in the cantonment were only testing their bombs. So, all is well! Thanks so much for saving our lives.

“What!” I thought hard in my heart. Testing bomb! How come they were doing such things within the city? I thought mother said the intense sound of bomb could deafen someone. Does that mean that everybody in Lagos right now are deaf and dumb? Of course no, because till this moment I still saw Toyosi and John speaking to each other with their lips and rolling on the floor, crying for Bode’s absence. Mrs Omotayo was trying to console them. I guessed she hadn’t heard what Bode was doing to her children when the bomb blast occurred. If she knew, she wouldn’t have taken it lightly with them.

I reached for my poem book in the middle of the night. Then I wrote the date, January 27, 2002.
BOMB BLAST!

Episode 41

The search for Bode began. Toyosi and John wept all days for him. They had visited everywhere they could to find him. Mrs Omotayo had also combed everywhere for Taiba who also fled during the bomb blast. Now I knew what really happened—it was a bomb blast in the Ikeja Army Cantonment. The latest news had it that the bombs were kept in an airtight underground and became heated up. So, there was ignition and they blasted.
I secretly went through some of the newspapers my father bought—a lot of them, because he needed to keep himself abreast of all the information pertaining to the bomb blast. He needed Bode so much.
Toyosi had grown lean, just within few days after the incident. It was obvious that she was getting lean. To worsen the story of her life, her husband had notified her of his return to Nigeria in few days. Toyosi needed to get back to her husband’s house and pretend that she had been waiting there for him all the while.
My father was the most confused person in the world. If Bode would never be found, then he would have to bounce back to me and take me as his child, but would he be humble enough to apologize? That would be a question for another day.
I was walking on the street a week after the incident when I saw Obinna walking towards a house. Yes! We could get a clue to Bode’s whereabout from him, I thought. When I returned home that day, I told Toyosi about Obinna and we tried to locate his home.
Toyosi and John cried out loud when Obinna’s parent told them something. As I was able to make out, the boy himself had become deaf and dumb at the loud sound from the blasts of the bomb while he was running away with Bode. The real bomb was the shock of his best friend, Bode, who rushed into the Oke Afa canal and sank. Obinna saw his friend sinking in the mire; himself had to turn around and escape somehow from death.
As I learnt later, many souls were lost to the mysterious canal which I never knew was in existence until the occurrence of the bomb blast. I felt for Obinna. How would he feel now about the loss of his speech and auditory sense he was boasting about just few minutes before the blast? Would he now be the one to get offended seeing someone putting leaves inside the mouth? I thought. Sometimes anything that goes around comes around.
Toyosi fell and rolled on the floor. She was ready to die right inside Obinna’s house. John mustered much courage and helped her out of there. Obinna was just full of tears too—he was trying to look away from me, being overcome with shame. I wept for them.
I found it hard to believe that Bode was dead for real. When Mrs Omotayo heard that, she concluded that Taiba was dead too. How would the villagers feel whenever they hear of Taiba’s demise?
It was too ironical a thing to think about—five people in a house, three disabled and two able-bodied; a mishap came rocking and the disabled were able to survive while the able were not able to save themselves. There must be ability in disability, I thought. When I later told Biodun what I observed, he said it was the truth, because ‘ability’ was part of what makes the spelling of ‘disability’.
A day after Toyosi and John knew the truth about their son Bode, a great disagreement erupted between them. Toyosi fought hard to leave John and get away forever, but the man didn’t want her to leave. He confessed that he was already used to her.
I watched as the drama unfolded. Toyosi had her way and disappeared. John wept like a baby. He seemed to have lost everything—his child and his wife. I thought he would now at this moment set my mother free, but I was only making a big mistake.
The day after Toyosi left, early in the morning, I woke up but didn’t find my father. I went to the parlour, to my father’s room, to Bode’s room and to my mother’s room but he was nowhere near. The home was half-empty since they had sold almost everything in there earlier.
I sat on the only chair left in the parlour and noticed a note on the table. He must have left a letter for me. Now I needed to see what he had for me, apology and nothing else, I thought. Afterall, he had lost everything he thought he had earlier.
Rose, I have walked out of this house forever. Don’t expect to see me anytime soon because I will never return. I maintain, Rose, you are the cause of all my tragedy, because if I haven’t had you, I wouldn’t have had anything doing with any other woman, such that I impregnated Toyosi. If you have come out of your mother’s womb as a normal human being, I, John, would not have slept with another damsel and bring her home. If you have only come out whole from the womb, I would have been contented with you and your mother; but now everything I have is gone. I will go and start a new life. Next week the house rent for this flat will be due and you will be sent out by the caretaker. It is better for me to remain childless than having you as a child because you are as useless as nothing. Imagine, a child that will never get married. Goodbye Rose.
I screamed. Does that mean I would never know where my mother was? Now I would find John wherever he may be. I needed help here. Who would help? I thought.
Now I believed it was time to get on to my feet and fight for my right. John and Toyosi must not go scot-free, I thought. They must produce my mother. Now I had nothing more to lose. I would confide in Mrs Omotayo and give her my real identity, perhaps she could be of tremendous help. I would reveal my real identity—she must know that I am the daughter of John and not his housemaid as she thought I was.
I got up to my feet and began to make for the exit door.

*******TO BE CONTINUED*******