His words frightened me, how close I’d come to hearing different news.
‘As you know,’ the doctor continued, ‘abortion is illegal in this country, and I should be reporting this to the authorities. However, I think what is paramount now is ensuring she’s fine. I’d advise you though to encourage her to report wherever she got these pills to NAFDAC before they manage to kill others that aren’t as lucky.’
I called my mother because I couldn’t stop crying, because I felt like a little child suddenly lost in a bustling station, people running helter skelter, without a parent to hold their hand.
Zina opened her eyes as I waited, weeping into the spotless bedsheet.
‘Good to know you would have cried at my funeral,’ she croaked over my head.
I jerked up and wiped at my face, relief washing over me. ‘Are you mad?!’
A wan smile crossed her face. ‘You said babies were expensive.’
‘You should call her mother. I would want to know if you were in such a situation,’ my mother said to me later while Zina slept.
I found Zina’s phone in her bag and called Aunty Ada. ‘Zinachukwu, where are you this child?’ she railed across the line.
‘Aunty Ada, it’s me, Nwakaego,’ I said.
And with that natural mother’s instinct, she immediately knew something was wrong. ‘What happened?’ she breathed.
My mother met Aunty Ada at the hospital entrance, engulfing her in an embrace, assuring her Zina was fine. Aunty Ada cried and cried, then she nodded, encouraged, as my mother spoke to her.
Death had separated them, near death brought them back together.
17
Commonwealth
A form with an unfamiliar globe emblem was on my bed the month Nwamaka told us she was leaving. Commonwealth Scholarships. In future, I would think of that day with the ancillary mirth of my classmate Njoki’s favourite statement: ‘ “Commonwealth” – what is so common about the wealth? Should be called Association of Former Colonies.’
‘I overheard a few people at the office talking about it so I asked some questions then stopped at the cyber cafe to check for the form online. I think you should apply,’ my mother explained, pushing the pages towards me.
The results had been pasted on the notice board at the campus. It all seemed too mundane: months of sleepless nights, exacting dress-coded classes and unsparing lecturers, all for our names to be printed on these flimsy papers pinned to the corkboard, pins that would loosen with time, sheets that would get wet when rains fell.
‘Is my name there? Can you see it?’ Zina shouted, jumping up from beside me. The boards were crowded, students shoving their way to the front so they could trace their numbers and those of their friends with their fingertips, followed by shouts of joy or heads bowed in disappointment. ‘If you’ve seen your result, move now, let others check theirs. Please!’ someone shouted.
‘Yes, move!’ Zina supported, still stretching her neck. ‘Ego, you’re tall. Move forward and check for both of us. I can’t see anything,’ she said to me.
It both amazed and disconcerted me how resilient she was. One day she was in a hospital bed, pale and seemingly at death’s door, and now she was bouncing up and down like it had all been a moment of shared hallucination. Aunty Ada had fought with her husband after Zina went home, a bitter and rancorous fight that had made Zina speculate that her parents might end their long-standing marriage.
But in the end, Uncle Uzondu caved and Zina’s engagement was called off.
‘I can’t believe it. I don’t even know what to do with myself now that I can do anything I want,’ Zina effused.
Our names were listed in the second-class upper division, and I felt an auspicious elation that my life would not end up a total waste like my father had predicted. I could hear Emeka saying with a pert smile and an arched brow, ‘Not bad for a girl that claims to have lost her brain.’
He was yet to email me since the party, and I wondered if his sister had told him I was there. If it was guilt that kept him from reaching out or if it had all been a ploy. But Emeka wasn’t like that.
My mother continued, ‘It’s a very good opportunity,’ she said. ‘I think it would be good for you to go somewhere different for a while. Uncle Ikenna…’ She paused like she always did whenever she spoke of him. ‘Uncle Ikenna really enjoyed the time he spent studying in the UK; he always spoke of it very fondly. Of course, a lot must have changed since then, but the quality of education is still very high, and you’ll have access to a much better system over there.’
I considered my mother’s words and the possibility of leaving, then I pictured my life if I stayed, without the connections to lobby for the right jobs, without protection from the realities and wickedness of the country. The next day I went to the cyber cafe to look at schools, then I printed all the forms and instructions one after the other, determined not to leave anything out. At home, I filled them in painstakingly, first with pencil, then in pen once I was sure of the words.
In a packed hall, I took the IELTS test, bristling at having to take an exam to prove my knowledge of the only language I’d ever spoken.
‘Come and apply with me,’ I encouraged Zina.
‘Please please please. School never tire you? I’m leaving law for you people, I’m going into acting,’ she said. And I concluded that there was something about near death that had unshackled her, left her inimitably fearless.
The morning Nwamaka left, my mother sat on the edge of my bed as the sun came up, forming an orange globe through the reflection of my bedroom window. She looked nervous as she said, ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’
I waited, expecting the worst. She dug in the pocket of her dressing gown and pulled out a black box.
‘Akin asked me to marry him before he left,’ she said, handing it to me. Akin had been gone for weeks, had she hidden the box in her gown all this time? ‘I wasn’t sure of how and when to share, but I thought you should know.’
On her face, I read what she did not say: that she hoped for my support and approval, that she needed someone to say she was doing life right. And not for the first time, I felt like the parent in our relationship.
I opened the box and stared at the platinum band, the simple stone that sparkled where it hit the light. ‘It’s a beautiful ring. What did you say?’
A corner of her lips turned up. ‘I said yes.’
‘You’re still married.’
She stared at her hands. ‘I know. He said he’ll wait till whenever your father gives the divorce.’
Just as he’d promised, my father had sent a letter stating explicitly that he now considered me dead to him. We’d filed a case against Pastor Kamsi but the courts were on strike due to nonpayment of allowances and Barrister Ogbu, Aunty Sally’s lawyer, who was also handling my mother’s divorce case, wasn’t hopeful about the outcome. ‘I’ll be honest with you. Rape cases barely go anywhere in this country. In fact, since this country gained independence, we’ve had less than 50 convictions. And I’m told the church has hired a Senior Advocate of Nigeria to take on the case. It will be tough. But if you want to go ahead…’
‘I like Akin,’ I said to my mother. ‘He makes you happy.’
