The Mooreland hospital had served three generations of the
Akanji family. I wouldn’t blame the building or the staff, but this hospital
had always been sweet and bitter to the Akanjis. Yes in that particular order;
sweet, then bitter. The walls of the hospital held back so much drama that Mooreland
theatre would have been a more apt name for the plush clinic.
“Are you sure mama will not know? It sounds too spontaneous,
I think we should slow down a bit.” Vivian didn’t like the idea; she had every
right to resent it. Which true blooded Yoruba woman wouldn’t.
“It
will make mama die in peace, at least something to smile about even if it’s
just for a minute.” Deji was having none of it, of course he was over joyed
that he held the heir to the Akanji dynasty in his arms. The six months old
bastard would order governors and make kings shit on themselves with just a misguided sign from his fingers. The Akanjis were
into large scale oil bunkering. They owned ships and refineries around the world.
To put it simply, they had a direct pipeline to the Nigerian treasury.
“Viv we talked about this. Can’t you
just put on a show for a woman in her final days? Put aside all this jealousy
and selfishness, think about someone else but yourself.”
Deji’s voice was getting a bit too loud and his wife knew
when not to push it. She withdrew and decided in her heart to go along with the
drama, do it for mama she thought, besides the old woman didn’t have enough
brains left to grasp what was going on. As they opened the huge white doors of
the VIP ward, the baby giggled in his usual annoying way. Annoying to Vivian
but it was the only thing in the world that mattered to Deji, seeing the
bastard giggle. The boy smiled with both lips curved in an awkward way. Someone
should have remembered that awkward curve when he smiled, and someone in the
family should have stuck that in their memory. Maybe it would have averted the
calamity that befell them. That smile would be the end of all smiles in the
Akanji family. Deji was 52 and his estranged wife Vivian was a decade
younger. They had been man and wife for 23 years now. Chief Deji Akanji had
been a loving husband to his barren wife for twenty years. With all the family
pressure and insults you would expect from a traditional Yoruba family when the
wife was barren, Deji had been faithful. Twenty years of being the perfect
husband. Twenty years without late nights. Twenty years without frolicking or
even hanging out with the boys. Deji was within reach of husband sainthood. Chief
Deji, world renowned oil thief and with all his political clout and wealth, he
was still a loyal husband.
The rule in the Akanji family was quite clear, first son
wins it all. No sub sections in this law. If you are the first son everything
belongs to you. It never occurred to anyone that maybe one day a first son
might not be produced. The other family members could careless; it was more of
a blessing that if Deji died childless, one of them would win in the scramble
for top spot.
His
mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four years ago and had been on a
steady decline. At first she would forget what day it was, then it was her name
and the names of her five children. It got so bad that she would scream for security
to take Deji out her room most times when he visited because she couldn’t recognize the stranger. Sometimes she
had moments of clarity and in those rare occasions, all that came out her mouth
were revelations. Mama always prophesied doom anytime she had her senses with her.
She once told a nurse she should enjoy her legs because she would lose it in the
next 24 hours. It sounded vague and
stupid till the double amputee nurse came wailing to the VIP ward the next
three days in her shiny new wheel chair.
“Witch, witch, witch!”
Of course by that time, Mama had gone back to her state of
oblivion.
As
they waited to see his mum, he recounted numerous times he and Vivian had to
wait in the fertility clinic, jerking off into test tubes and going home with
bags full of fertility drugs. The ordeal
had been harrowing and the result was always the same, “you are both fine.” No
matter the part of the world they went for tests, “you are both fine.” He must
have heard that in a dozen different languages from the German to the Chinese
doctor with squinty eyes and a permanent smile. Well for sure all that was over
now, he finally had a child, a son. A pity it wasn’t from Vivian. The
industrial attachment student he’d had an affair with was barely
seventeen. Her name Bola. She was working for his bottled water company, one of
the numerous companies he used as a front for his illegal business.
The very brief affair had been his first, a weekend in
Tinapa and he sent her away after the affair like Abraham did Hagar, but with
more money than she could count, and prayed it would be the end of the whole
business. Alas it wouldn’t be so, the gods had better plans for him. Six months
later, she was back heavily pregnant and crying her eyes out. Seventeen and
pregnant is no fun in Nigeria, especially in the eighties when society called
women who wore jeans pants whores.
As if the gods hadn’t had enough fun yet, she bore him a son
and all the family members queued up to worship the new head. The rule is
simple - first son wins it all and no one cared which woman bore him. Bola had
turned from local fling to Queen mother overnight. Vivian was advised to be
happy for her husband and pray the new Queen show her mercy, else she’d lose
out on everything. The Nigerian society had no patience for women that couldn’t
bear offspring.
“Vivian be a dear and call this child’s real mother for me
and stop fooling yourself. Shame on you lying to an old woman.”
Mama did not buy it. She was on prophesy mode and that day
would be her crowning day in her brief but deadly career in prophesy.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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