At term, he took Ugonma in,
the taxi had rattled, creaked, bounced
and chugged on the dirt road, all the way
to the maternity
A midwife, looking fazed in her faded uniform
walked Ugonma
feet and lips swollen,
screaming in pain, water breaking,
into the labour room
every dragging step slow,
laboured and painful
A wait long and weighty like eternity,
and then a delivery attendant,
her face the picture of nonchalance,
eventually shuffled out of the labour room
to thrust roughly into his trembling hands
a list of items required
for the delivery.
The Okada rider, his machine idling,
spotted Obi as he hurried out from the maternity
signing and screaming
“chemist shop”, yes, “chemist”
the rider on sensing his desperation
doubled his fare, cursing the country,
swerving and swearing as he rode.
.
Places and people flew by and past on that mad rush
to the chemist shop, an airless suffocating place
running over in dirt and disorder
where a a dishevelled male plied a messy trade.
Items purchased,
Obi rushed back to the maternity,
straining his ears, lips moving in silent prayers
his hands trembling,
items handed over with haste
the attendant checking with indifference and
troubling sluggishness, and then shuffling back
into the delivery room with the items.
Obi waited outside, counting the minutes,
the seconds as long as hours and twice as slow ,
his heart pounding,
fatherhood within reach at last ,
after seven heavy years of wearying waiting
Totally immersed in imagining what must be going on inside,
waiting for the beautiful moment, oblivious to everything else
vaguely aware of when his mother and Ugonma’s mum arrived
and how they both laughed at his fretting and fidgeting
assuring him that all will be well
saying that “God never sleeps”
He saw the midwife as she came out,
her apron all blood and stains
saw her signal the two women to follow her
and now alone, he dreaded his loneliness
soon he thought he heard a wail
that came from the soul, the wail of one broken
They brought the baby to show him,
looking so small, fragile and delicate
and when he asked after Ugonma
Her mum, her voice brave, but broken by pain
yet tinged with pride said
“Ugonma has left this world, “uwa nsi”, she spat out
“a woman at last,
to the shame of those gossiping tongues
who had chattered that she was a “male””
God gives and God takes, she said
and when Obi said “why, Ogom nwanyi, why”, she replied
“a man can never wrestle with his god, his personal chi
nor challenge the decision of God”
His groan was deep and heart rending
his voice saying slowly, chilled numb
“This death cannot be a decision of God,
we wrong God when we blame Him for our failures
as humans”
“Chim, sudden total darkness has fallen on my life at high noon,
a driving torrential downpour has caught me in the middle of nowhere,
blinding me, my path has now become a thicket of dense inpenetrable prickly shrubs”
he cried and sang, inconsolable, lost and broken
His mum laid her hands on him and said slowly
“a woman who can do this,
who can abandon a new born at the moment of birth
must be an “Ogbanje””
and his look of pain, rage and disgust froze her.
He called the baby Chiwetalu (Brought by God)
and at night when Chiwetalu screamed from hunger
when Chiwetalu cried,
troubled by gripe and colic from formula milk
his heart bled, he cried and held her
and rememered Ugonma and still asked her why
even though his age mates had warned him not to,
had advised him to reject any advances from her
if she walked into his dreams from the land of dead
They had advised him to wear two tight underwears to bed
as she may return to seduce him
and then tear off his manhood
since they all knew how much she loved him in life.
In Obi’s mother’s village,
an unmarried teenage girl had lost her baby
to fever and diarrhoea
one month after delivery,
a girl lost, Nwadiuto
who had now lost virtually everything
– her baby
– her innocence in a moment of madness,
– her schooling as she was expelled from school
once her pregnancy was noticed
– and the support of parents
who had thrown her out for disgracing them.
Her mother’s village proved to be her sanctuary
there they welcomed her, kind aunts helped her
manage her shame and the pains of pregnancy
Her mother frequently visited her there
whenever she thought her dad was not looking
(her tough and puritan dad saw all,
looked the other way, said nothing,
but silently thanked God that she did)
Now her chest full of grief and still sore from her loss
her breasts full, swollen and tender,
her life emptied of meaning and attachment
she agreed to nurse and breast feed Chiwetalu,
this life so fragile, so trusting
The hungry ruby lips needed some coaching and guiding
flesh and rubber feel and smell differently
but soon the hungry lips tugged and sucked at nipples
engorged, tender, touching her,
awakening her and flooding
her with images of her own child
who now sleeps forever
and Nwadiuto cries for him,
for a father he never knew and would never know
a man whose heat she had felt
but not his love nor his affection
regretting their brief interaction,
rushed and unfulfilling for her
She laments this and her loss
laments her parents
who further lost her
when they threw her out
when she felt most lost and needed them most
and occasionally when Chiwetalu cried from hunger
she would also think of his mother
that the hungry earth had claimed and swallowed
And from a distance,
heart still broken, but filled with gratitude to Nwadiuto,
Obi watches these two lives and surveys his
united by loss, by losses that could have been avoided
And he ponders how one life had in coming
taken another life,
how another young life had flown
emptied the life of a teenage mum
but leaving her full sorrow and milk
how that milk now bonded
two lives and a third
and His tears never cease to flow
from a mixture of missing, thanking and wishing.
*****First raw and rough cut of a song that invaded me in its inchoate form, begging to trapped on paper. MMR and IMR are my targets here – and I now agree that overt didactism ruins creative writing. This shambolic song is one good example. OK, I pack it here for now and will come back to retouch it later, hopefully. Noel
