Ajie took exception to Barisua’s attitude, the tone she put up to exclude them, as if she knew things they didn’t. Her haughtiness and self-righteousness were barely concealed, the manner with which she went into Uncle Tam’s room and came out with a pile of clothes for washing, as if to say she was just the sort of girl whose place in the world it was to carry out such tasks.
When Paul asked her if there was anything they could do, she replied, “Yes. Yes, of course. But nothing really to do for today, maybe tomorrow.” Bibi stayed with Barisua and helped her spread out the bedsheets on the line.
Paul and Ajie went to the sitting room, and since there was nothing else to do, Paul turned on the radio, and that was when they heard the news that a plane traveling from Port Harcourt to Lagos had crashed into a forest that morning, minutes before landing.
—
About an hour after the news was broadcast on the radio, Uncle Tam returned home. He paced the sitting room, asking if they had the phone number of the hotel in Lagos where their parents were supposed to stay before their flight to Boston.
Bibi came out of the bathroom for the third time since hearing the news of the crash. She told Ajie she was having a runny stomach.
“We aren’t even sure what flight they went on,” Uncle Tam said, looking at Paul.
“No, we are not sure. But we know their flight was for this morning,” Paul said.
“Three flights leave Port Harcourt to Lagos every morning, I think.”
The doorbell rang, and Uncle Tam went to open it. It was Bendic’s friend Dr. Idoniboye.
Ajie looked in the man’s face and knew what he had come to tell them: Their parents had been blown into pieces. He could imagine the panic on the flight when the passengers sensed there was serious trouble. Ma would have held Bendic’s hand and screamed, “Jesus! Jesus! The blood of Jesus!”
Ajie imagined her clutching on to her faith and Bendic’s hand. One of her favorite Scriptures was from the prophet Isaiah: “When the enemy comes against you, like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will raise a standard against him.”
She had recently purchased a study Bible that had various commentaries from theologians who argued over the arbitrary commas in the translations of that verse from the ancient Hebrew. Is it the enemy who comes like a flood? Or is it the standard raised by the spirit of the Lord that is likened to a flood? Ma told them, during their morning devotion, that the name of Jesus was the standard that should be raised; the blood of Jesus was equally efficacious. You needed to invoke them in times of trouble. In Ajie’s mind during that morning devotion, the blood of Jesus rising like a violent flood cut a more intense picture.
But none of these mattered anymore, he thought as he saw Dr. Idoniboye walk into the flat. Ma’s prayers hadn’t saved her, regardless of where the commas lay in the sentence.
—
Dr. Idoniboye said Bendic had called him once he heard about the crash. They knew everyone would be worried about them. “They got on an earlier flight. Just before the one that crashed.” He said Bendic had been trying the phone lines in Uncle Tam’s department at the university all afternoon but couldn’t get through.
“Thank God!” Uncle Tam said, looking at the children. Paul put his hand on his head, gave a big sigh of relief, and sat down on the wooden arm of the sofa. Bibi still looked drained, though her eyes had woken up.
“It’s a disaster,” Dr. Idoniboye said to Uncle Tam. “Where is your wife?”
“We are expecting her any minute now,” Uncle Tam said.
“Your father said I should tell you they are fine,” Dr. Idoniboye said again, casting his glance on all three faces. “We are so thankful to God, all of us.”
The children left the sitting area, and Ajie could still feel his heart thumping, just as hard as it had when Dr. Idoniboye walked through the door and he thought the worst had happened. Paul opened the door to the balcony and stepped out, and the faint noise of the street filtered in. Ajie and Bibi joined Paul outside, looking down on the street below.
Ajie started feeling ill and went back inside and sat at the dining table. He put his head down on the table, resting his head on his crossed arms. He felt the coolness of the Formica on his arm and then leaned closer to rest his cheek on the table.
“I read that the plane simply exploded in air. Did it have faults before takeoff?” Uncle Tam said to Dr. Idoniboye.
“I don’t doubt that it did, but we are hearing all sorts of things,” Dr. Idoniboye said, dropping his voice. “That your president wanted some people on that flight dead.”
“You don’t say.”
“Have you not seen the flight manifest? Over twenty solid Rivers men, wasted. Over twenty! Silenced like that in one day. This state has been set back half a century.”
Uncle Tam was quiet for a while, and then he asked Dr. Idoniboye if he wanted a drink.
“If it is cold,” the doctor said, “I’ll take a bottle of malt, please.”
When Ajie heard this, despite the burning he was starting to feel on his neck and the recent panic about his parents, he had to smile.
If Bibi had been there, Ajie would have winked at her, and Bibi would have rolled her eyes and shaken her head. Bibi was the expert at mimicking guests. The whole range of them: Bendic’s friends, Ma’s schoolteachers, Ogibah people, or the visitors who came with trouble tales, seeking assistance.
There was always the guest’s initial show of refusal when offered a drink, “No no no! I’m not a stranger now. Don’t worry yourself with getting a drink for me.”
Ma would cajole. Bendic would say he wouldn’t have such nonsense, “You must take something.” Then there would be the guest’s meek, feeble surrender, mentioning the drink of choice: “Okay, a bottle of Sprite will do.”
When the children were younger, they played games like Shopkeeper and Customer, Police and Thief, Guest and Host.
Paul would sit in Bendic’s armchair in the parlor with his back straight, his legs crossed like a big shot, with a newspaper on his lap.
“Kpoi kpoi kpoi!” A knock on the door.
He wouldn’t stand up to open it. He would simply say, “Come in,” not even looking up from the newspaper. Then Bibi would sashay in wearing some of Ma’s headgear, a stiff jacquard rolled and fashioned into this towering thing that was balanced on her head like a satellite dish. Bibi would move slowly with the double wrapper tied around her waist and the red George wrapper or asoke thrown over her shoulder for extra’s sake.
Taking off her imaginary sunglasses, she would squint into the room. Paul would get up and stretch his hand in the most restrained and respectable manner; then he would offer her a seat. Pleasantries would be exchanged: How is the family? What about the children? And work?
Bibi wouldn’t immediately take the seat that had been offered to her. Like a proper thick madam, she would survey the chair first, adjust the massive falling-down sleeves of her blouse, then finally sit down, resting her big handbag beside her. Then it would be left to Paul, the confident and caring host, to fold away his newspaper and say, “So, madam, what can I offer you?” rubbing his hands together.
They would go through the normal rigmarole of “Oh, no, don’t bother.” “But you have to take something.” She would concede to a bottle of malt. Coke, Fanta, and Sprite were for kids only, or what poor people offered their adult guests.
Paul would raise his voice. “Okon! Where is this boy?”
And Ajie would appear from the kitchen, a houseboy in shorts and singlet, fidgety and ostensibly stupid.
“Yes, Oga,” Ajie would reply, falling forward, almost. “Wetin Oga need?”