Meanwhile, in the children’s room, Peter had managed to catch enough of the conversation to know what was up. “Nkechi… pregnant… Charles… father.” One didn’t need to be a diviner to put the story together. He looked at his siblings. Junior had almost fallen asleep on the bed and Ada was reading a book. He made up his mind not to tell them. What they didn’t know would not hurt them. Charles had also been eavesdropping. He had been expecting this visit, sooner or later. As soon as the Nwosus were at the door, he jumped into bed.
Later that night, in bed, Mr. and Mrs. Okafor discussed the matter in detail. Mrs. Okafor was incensed that Charles had pretended to be asleep when they had entered his room to confront him about the situation. He never slept that early. When she got agitated and wanted to hit him, her husband held her hand, reminding her that the children would probably hear it all if she flared up. She retreated, annoyed, and promised to deal with Charles in her own time. Now subdued, she didn’t see any problem with the plan, provided the expense was not prohibitive. Mr. Okafor was against the plan. He admitted that it was quite an embarrassment but he also felt the child should be borne till full term. His wife was against this plan.
“This is already a big scandal as it is. I am sure that we are not the only ones who know that Charles has gotten this girl pregnant. I just don’t want it to spread further. So, let us do what they asked us to do.”
“But, dear, that will be killing an unborn child. I don’t think it is right. In my family, there have been one or two children born out of wedlock. It is scandalous, but we didn’t terminate the pregnancies.”
“Well, it isn’t our child and we are not going to kill the child ourselves. They only said they wanted money to do it themselves. Since they want to stop the humiliation and they only need money, let us give them the money and wash our hands off the case.”
“I wouldn’t want to support anything that goes against my principles. If they want to go ahead and terminate the pregnancy, let them do so. But I will not help them. Let Charles bear his burden. If I have to help him I will, but I will not aid the abortion which is evil.”
Mrs. Okafor knew that when her husband spoke in this tone, his decision was usually final. She rubbed his back gently and added, “I think you should think about it a bit more. Seek some advice on the matter and we can decide what to do by tomorrow evening. I will speak with Charles again before then.”
With that, they went to sleep.
The following day, Mr. Okafor spoke to one of his office mates about the situation. Mr. Edet was a burly man with a thick Calabar accent. A father of six, his joviality endeared him to many in the office.
“What would have happened to you if your parents had decided to abort you or your wife’s parents had decided to do the same?”
“Well, I imagine that we would not exist on earth. But my wife feels there will be a social stigma both on the parents and on the child himself. People will continue to call the child a bastard. Besides, I can’t force my nephew and the girl to get married now.”
“I see you have come to some sort of decision already. I know that many people seek advice from people who share the same views with them: to corroborate a decision already taken.”.
Mr. Okafor grinned.
“I think your nephew and the girl should learn to live with the decision they made. If parents don’t feel any qualms killing their own children then what is the world coming to.” He paused. “But I think you had made up your mind before you told me about this.”
Mr. Okafor’s grin grew wider as he walked away.
Mrs. Okafor also didn’t waste time in seeking advice on the issue. Even though she had heard of several cases of abortions by married and unmarried girls, there was none that had come so close to her as this. She decided to seek the opinion of a fellow teacher in the primary school where she taught. She didn’t wait for the morning assembly to be over before she called Mrs. Okwudiafor in confidence, telling her that she had something important to discuss. Mrs. Okwudiafor was a long-time widow who had worked in the school longer than anyone else. In fact, she was long overdue for retirement the headmistress of the school was a dear friend of hers, so nobody seemed to notice that she should have retired. Besides, she commanded the respect of all the teachers and pupils in the school – almost as much as the headmistress – and she was always receptive.
“So what is the problem?” Mrs. Okwudiafor asked as soon as they were alone. They had strolled to the end of a classroom block where there were no pupils hanging out so they could be out of anyone’s earshot.
“You know my husband’s brother’s son from the village who came to live with us?” she began in Igbo. They usually spoke to each other in their native tongue.
“Yes..”
“Our neighbors, the ones who live in the flat above ours, came to our house yesterday night. They came and told us something that, for me to even say it now, my stomach turns.” She spat out on the grass around them. Mrs. Okwudiafor nodded, goading her to continue.
“They came and told us that their house girl whom they brought from the village is three months pregnant and that the father is Charles.”
“Uwa nka! This world!” Mrs. Okwudiafor exclaimed.
“Now, they say they want to remove the baby because of the shame it will cause and said we should give them the money for the operation.”
“At times you think that you brought someone to help you in your house but you don’t know that you are bringing trouble for yourself. You should thank God that these people came to you quietly to tell you. Some other people would go around telling the whole world before telling you. Then, they bring confusion to the home. I hope you will send the boy back to the village after the operation before he causes more trouble?”
“My husband has not agreed to give the money for the operation. He says it is bad.”
“What is wrong with your husband? Is he okay? Many people do this thing everyday. I heard the government will soon legalize it. It is just a matter of time. In short, tell him you spoke with me and I said there is no problem. Finding a doctor to do it is not a problem.”
With that, Mrs. Okafor felt convinced of her decision. She had heard what she wanted to hear and so couldn’t have been more satisfied.
While Mrs. Okafor prepared dinner for the family, she went over all the arguments that she would use to convince her husband to give the money for the abortion. She had taken a different route back home in order to avoid meeting Mrs. Nwosu who worked in a company near her school. Charles had also avoided her, it seemed. Junior and Peter had not returned from their extra lessons after school but Ada was with her, helping out in the kitchen.
“Mummy, I have not finished my assignment.”
“When you finish with those plates, then you can go and do your homework.”
“Okay Mummy, Uncle Charles said he will help me do some of them.”
“I don’t want to see you entering his room!”
Ada, startled, almost dropped the plate she was holding.
“We will do the assignment together when I finish. Do you hear? I don’t want you to have anything to do with Charles. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mummy,” Ada said meekly.
Just then, they heard a loud moan. Ada looked at her mother, puzzled.
“That sounds like Nkechi,” Ada said.
Mrs. Okafor hesitated.
“Em, just wait here, I will go and see what is the matter,” she said as she washed her hands.
She was up the stairs in a flash. Though she had been avoiding the Nwosus all day, her curiosity got the better of her. She knocked on the door several times, the moans seemed to drown the raps on the door.
Mrs. Nwosu opened the door, a pensive look on her face.
“What is the matter? Who is crying so loudly? Is everything all right?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just Nkechi. We just got news that her mother in the village is dead. She is the only child.”
Mrs. Okafor took in the scene. There was a grim-looking man seated on a chair in the sitting room. Nkechi was in a corner of the room, crying to the skies, oblivious to all around her.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Mrs. Nwosu asked.
“No, nothing. When my husband comes back, we will see you.”
Mrs. Nwosu shrugged her shoulders and said: “The poor woman did not even know her child was pregnant.”
The ceiling stared back down at him. He had been staring at it for a long while, the only distraction to his reverie being the fan. Its slowly rotating blades cut through time and again. Lying with his back on the bed was quickly becoming a favorite pastime. He was becoming a recluse, a hermit. First the stares of the Nwosu’s had banished him to his uncle’s house. He was afraid of meeting them in the compound, on the road, on the street, anywhere. He couldn’t gauge their reaction if they saw him. The Nwosus were big. Maybe they could be violent. Then, his aunt had secluded him further to his room. He simply couldn’t stand her cold stares, much less her continuous hissing each time he passed by or greeted her. Only his uncle seemed to act like nothing had happened, though the occasional reprimand seemed to be laced with a bit more venom.
His daily routine was now severely streamlined: wake up at 4.30 a.m., wash uncle’s car, fetch water and wash a few clothes, then rush back to his cell before 6.00 a.m. None of the neighbors came out of his flat before that time so he didn’t risk exposing himself. What to do afterwards? Not much. Just read. At least that was the official reason he gave. His exams were close and he had to read, he told his cousins. Peter smiled when he first proffered that reason for not coming to watch TV with them. It was a mischievous kind of smile. At this point though he didn’t care what Peter thought. His aunt had limited any contact his cousins would want to have with him. Maybe it was better that way. He had to read. But he couldn’t. All the while he thought of Nkechi. He hadn’t seen her in a while. He didn’t have the guts to do that. In his mind he played back the times he had spent with her. They would start with pleasurable memories and then, like a film, roll on to that wet evening when she had told him he was with child. He would also recall when she had come to his house to confront him and when her relations had come to tell his uncle. The last time he saw her was when he had summoned up the courage to go to her house, the day after, when all had gone to work. He told her, he loved her, liked he used to say. This time she was nonplussed. He then told her that the best thing to do was to go as her uncle had said and do the abortion before she put her life in danger. He was stroking her shoulders. He never bargained for what he got next. He heard the loud whack before he felt it. It was when he saw her put her shaking hands back down and felt the pain on his left cheek that he realized what had happened.
Bewildered, he felt his cheek, turned round, and left. That had been his last attempt to convince her. Now all he did was wait. He felt like a trapped animal, waiting for the hunter – the coming chain of events – to finish him off.
“So I think we should give them the money and avoid any trouble with them.” Mrs. Nwosu stated after her husband had had dinner. They had had dinner in their bedroom so that the children would not hear the discussion. “With the death of this girl’s mother, the least we can do is to give them what they want.”
“I can help out a bit with the burial, but not with this back-door kind of thing that they want to do. It is immoral. The girl’s mother just died and the first thing they want to do is to kill her child.”
“But it is none of our business what they want to do and if you hadn’t brought Charles to Lagos we wouldn’t be in this kind of problem,” she flared.
“The children can hear you,” Mr. Okafor stated calmly.
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