The blood of a stranger
By Lechi Eke
Ignatius called his father, against his will, for he had taken a decision to ignore him and his suggestion, or was it instruction? The older man picked up the phone by himself and sounded cautious when he heard his oldest son’s voice. “Yes?” he said. Ignatius told him what had happened that morning and how Gloria was going to ask for the medical report. “Ba wahala!” he replied in Hausa. When he hung up, Ignatius was glad that his father did not continue from where he stopped the previous day, trying to persuade him to do the unimaginable. Just a few months after his return from the USA, and being fully admitted into the running of the biggest private hospital in Makurdi which belonged to his father, his father had sat him down and discussed the importance of connections and associations with him. It started with an introduction, then an exposition and then, it ended with a demand. He had to join an association with a great network of connections.
“The members are the most benevolent and philanthropic people on earth,” his father said reverently.
However, it took his father weeks, energy and some threats to persuade him.
“I don’t want to be associated with anything that deals with blood sacrifices and Satanism,” Ignatius said diffidently trying to wiggle out.
“Blood sacrifices and Satanism – hahaha!” his father laughed him to scorn.”Listen, son, I’m talking about helping the poor, healing the sick and putting roofs over homeless people and food on their tables,” the older man explained congenially.
“But we don’t need to be in an association to do that,” Ignatius protested.
“But, you need money, good money to do them. The association is a platform of pulled resources. You cannot be richer alone, let alone achieve all that is in your tender heart to achieve. You have to know people and come into associations with them. So, wherever there’s an opening, they alert every member and we all share in the good things and continue to help the needy and downtrodden.”
“Nothing good comes out of this kind of thing, Dad,” Ignatius pointed out with a worried expression.
“Nothing good? Where did this well-equipped hospital come from? You went to school in one of the best universities in the world paying millions in hard currency, where did the money come from? Since you returned, how many people have you saved, helped, shown love? Look at it this way, son, God Almighty, without him we cannot be, empowered these men who are not greedy to eat alone, but have the mind to invite others to join them to enjoy. The Bible talks about four leprous men who struck gold and went into the city and called out to everyone to come and join them. In so doing, they stopped famine in their land. That’s exactly what members of the association do.”
When he was alone in his office, he browsed the newly interconnected network (internet) that just begun to come into use in the USA before he returned home. He typed in Bible and typed four lepers who struck gold and stopped famine. It took quite a while for the answer to come on the screen of his box computer. It says, four lepers stop famine minus struck gold 2Kings 7:3-10. Is this helpful?
Ignatius didn’t have a Bible so he sent one of the nurses to get him one. He marvelled at the story the Bible told in 2Kings chapter 7. He was so touched by the humanitarian gesture of the lepers that he called his father and said, “Dad, I want to be part of it.” His heart was glad when his father replied, “You’re a wise son.”
Ignatius actually began to feel like he had acted wisely by joining the association. He met very highly placed men in the society, very influential people and world renowned money bags. For over two years he sailed with them, but gradually, things began to get bizarre and just when he started toying with the idea of withdrawing, his father hit him with the most horrendous request.
Lying down in bed the night after that encounter with his father, Gloria said, “Doesn’t dad understand that I’m your next of kin, not him? I don’t understand you Africans.” Ignatius wanted to sing to her one of the reigning reggae songs that says, “Anywhere you come from as long as you’re a black man, you’re an African,” but the matter at hand called for no mirth, so he asked, “What did he do?” She covered her mouth with her hand as she often did when she was near tears, and paused for a long while before continuing. Ignatius knew she fought tears, trying to bring herself under control. He always marvelled at how easily the Americans cry.
“He refused to give me your medical report.”
READ ALSO:
Can Tinubu’s copycatting Obi erase the dirty spot of dented mandate?
Ignatius turned to her and gathered her in his arms and explained the situation to her. “I’m his oldest son and heir, and he would trust only himself who has been practising medicine before we were born, to handle it.” That seemed to calm her down, and thankfully, she had just started her monthly circle so nothing further was expected of him. It was not like the night before he told her the lie that he was feeling sick and that he went for a quick check up and something terrible was detected. That night she had snuggled close to him and said, “Darling, I feel this is a good night to make a baby boy.” He had stiffened because his mind was very far from making babies. He was struggling not to cry out for the burden his dad and the association had laid on him. His mind was still on the burden when he began to hear Gloria snoring lightly beside him.
That was on Sunday. By Tuesday, Ignatius began to feel sick. The symptoms of what he lied to his wife about came heavily upon him. Two days later, he could hardly contain it. He called his dad to tell him, and he told him to come in for an examination. By the time he reached his father’s office, two of his friends were there already, both, authorities in the ailment. The grim look on their faces after the examination frightened him.
On Friday, his father invited him over to his own house and told him frightening news. “You’re going to Geneva this evening to see my friend, Schuller. Let’s hear what he’d say.” Ignatius was in so much pain that he could only nod his head. Fear gripped him and he made a mental note never to lie with his health again if he survived the situation.
“I couldn’t get you any flight for tonight, sir. You may have to travel with a private jet. Your dad is arranging that,” his father’s secretary called to tell him. Gloria was just crying and wringing her fingers.
“Gee, try to pull yourself together for the girls,” Ignatius told her. Their three years plus twin girls were at the age of inquisitiveness. They asked questions until you say what you didn’t plan to say. He persuaded Gloria to go to work after the girls had gone to school. When everywhere was quiet, his father popped in to see him;
“My son,” he said grimly. “The news is bad, but not hopeless. The association said you have a chance of putting the ailment on your wife and saving yourself.” Ignatius was too weak to shout, but he shook his head. “I will go and see Dr Schuller.” His dad said okay and left. By Saturday, there was no flight and no offer of a jet because, his dad explained, “No one is really willing to give his jet, you’re not fully admitted into the association because of your lack of commitment of sacrifice on the table.” Sacrifice on the table? Ignatius was too weak to react to that; he just stared at the older man weakly.
Saturday afternoon, Ignatius was admitted into their hospital by his father who began to talk of carrying out a procedure on him by himself, with his friends. Fear gripped Ignatius. It flitted through his mind that the men might kill him on the operating table. But he was too weak to argue.
“What I do not understand is how this thing could come upon you so suddenly and overpower you instantly. It doesn’t add up. I mean, you’ve been going for regular medical checks. Why? Why? Why?” Gloria moaned.
Her questions couldn’t stop the deterioration of his health. Ignatius called for his lawyer to update his will. His dad came with him.
“Are you preparing to die, foolish man?” his father shouted at him. “Do the needful and live!”
Ignatius concluded that the lawyer was one of them. That was the last thing he remembered. Later when Gloria came to visit him, she rejoiced that he was awake and told him that he had been in a coma for two weeks! But when she settled her gaze on him, she began to cry. “Why are you crying?” he asked her with an effort for his mouth was twisted and his voice guttural. She just stood there crying until his father came in and shooed her off with, “Go, go and take care of your daughters!”
The older man showed him a mirror, and began to shout at him in his low vicious tone, “Are you the Righteous One? Are you the Messiah?” Ignatius didn’t recognise himself, but he knew his father was referring to his refusal to do what they asked him to do. He didn’t know that someone else was with his father until the man emerged from behind his father’s huge frame and said, “Place your right thumb here and say, I agree.” But Ignatius couldn’t lift it up. When his father saw that he struggled to lift his hand, he used the intercom and screamed into it, “Call the physiotherapist!”
Ignatius didn’t know how long it took, but he was able to lift his hand and placed it on that which the man proffered to him. However, it seemed to Ignatius as if it was a different day because he saw hazy hooded figures and felt his hand touch something damp and cold and heard himself say in his new guttural voice, “I agree.”
Two weeks later, Ignatius was sitting in his father’s office listening to him. The older man was full of praises for the association saying how they swung into action to deliver him and all that. “So, how do you feel now?” he asked his son. “I feel alive, Dad,” he beamed. “Great!” his father said smiling. “You can see how helpful the association is. Everything is great. You must throw a party to thank them, plus do something for the poor masses.”
On the day after Ignatius threw the party, Gloria took ill. When she went for an investigation, she carried a long face home. From then on, she began to act strangely going out often without telling Ignatius where she was going. Ignatius also learnt that she had been leaving the office sometimes, in the middle of the day and not returning home until late in the evening. She practically abandoned the running of the house to servants. He became worried, but more worrisome was that she no longer allowed him to touch her. Could she be having an affair, he pondered. She was also losing weight. Ignatius confronted her.
“Gee, what’s going on?” he asked her in the privacy of their bedroom.
“Where?” It was the same response he gave her the day she inquired what was eating him up after his father told him what the association demanded of him. Then, he lied to her that they discovered something in his body.
“With you, with us, you’re acting strange. You leave work early and return home late. You’re losing weight, and you shy away from intimacy.”
“Oh, yeah, oh, yeah? Intimacy? With the devil? Count me out, Bro!” She circled her hand in front of her and snapped it in a saucy manner.
Ignatius sat up in bed and stared at her with open mouth. “Who’s the devil?”
“Excuse me, excuse me!” she yelled at him.
“Listen, I told you before we got married that the dramas of black American sisters irritate me. I can’t deal. What’s the problem? Talk to me rationally with words, and slowly, so I can understand what you’re saying.”
“So, I went to the grocery, yeah, to get some stuff and I ran into a woman who said to me, how are you, sister? I said, good, thank you! She said, you need Jesus. I said, who? Jesus, she said. I said, not me, yeah, maybe you, but not me. She said, but you do. She said to me, your husband is seriously sick and lying down in hospital. But he will be well and you’ll take his place and die. He will throw a party when he gets well, and after that you’ll fall sick. If this happens, take my number and call me. Jesus sent me to tell you that He will deliver you.”
Ignatius jumped out of the bed. “And you believed this crazy fellow? You believed this person, this stranger you don’t know?
“But it happened, yeah? The way she said it, yeah? I fell ill and went for an investigation, yeah? And it’s your ailment that came to me. She said I should come for prayers. And that’s where I go. And I’m getting better.”
“Seriously, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said and went back to bed and closed his eyes and started deliberate snoring.
When Ignatius woke up, it was so hot he knew it was afternoon and not morning. He got up with a headache and went to the bathroom wondering why Gloria didn’t wake him up. He realized that he must have been drugged! The wall clock said it was 3pm. He stared at it in amazement. The house seemed empty. He moved around and found out that Gloria’s things had gone. His children’s things had gone. He sat down heavily. Gloria has gone? He felt a chill run from his head to his feet. His wife and children had left him because of… am I a devil?
He put a call through to his children’s school, to the security post. “This is Dr Kevwe, I’m just returning from out of town and passing your school, are my girls still there?”
“No, Dr Kevwe, your girls are not in school today. Their mother explained that they will be travelling out of the country.”
“O, that’s true. Thank you!”
As his front door bell rang, his eyes fell on a document on the dining table. He picked it up first before going to the door. It was his father. He charged into the house looking furious. “Where’s your wife? Where’s that woman?”
“Msugh!” he greeted his father. He ignored him. “Someone saw her name on the manifest of Delta Airways flying to London en-route NY from Abuja. How could you be so stupid? You didn’t tell me?”
Ignatius took a seat and looked at the document in his hand with a little yellow stick-on paper attached to it. It read: “Kindly find the finalization of our divorce by an Abuja magistrate court. I called someone to represent you in court. Sorry, you can’t have my blood!”
His father was still ranting and raging pacing the floor. “You don’t know what effort I put into this to make sure I save your true love so you can sacrifice a stranger. I saved you from heartache so what happened to your mother and I will not happen to you. And, this is how you repay me? By conniving with that stranger against your own father…”
Ignatius stretched out the document to him. He paused to read it, then, he pulled out a piece of cloth and took his glasses off and wiped it. Then, he wiped his face with a handkerchief because he was perspiring. He sat down away from Ignatius and read it again, and he began to cry.
*Ba wahala – no problem!
*Watch out for the last story in the trilogy next. Whose blood will go for the stranger’s?
