By the time they decided to take the injured boy to the military hospital near Rumuola, he had stopped breathing.
At about two-thirty P.M., the superintendent placed a call to his elder brother, who was the chief superintendent in charge of the Port Harcourt area. He went about everything with a calmness that suggested he might have done this many times. They searched the boy’s bag in hope of seeing anything that might incriminate him, but they only found cassette tapes, comic books, a Sony Walkman, and a video club card with a name and address on the back: Paul Utu, 11 Yakubu Gowon Avenue, Port Harcourt.
By evening, the affair was concluded, and they penned down a report: The boy had been caught looting a shop during the demonstration, an officer tried to stop him, and he assaulted the officer with a knife. A struggle ensued, during which the suspect went for the officer’s gun. Unfortunately, there was an accidental discharge and a bullet struck the suspect, killing him instantly. The two-page report was filed away.
The body of the deceased was quickly designated to the fate of armed robbers: A hole was dug at the back of the mopol station, and the body was tossed inside. It got dark quickly that day, well before six o’clock.
—
Of everything Ma had fought through in her life — the challenges of her childhood, her education, her early marriage, the birth of her children, her husband’s illness — there was no time she fought harder, more viciously, and with more focus than she did in the days after the ex — mopol pastor came to reveal what had happened to Paul.
She was on the phone early the next day, making arrangements. By eight A.M. two days later, she was waiting in the anteroom of the governor’s office, having secured an appointment with the help of former colleagues and friends. By the Thursday before Ajie arrived, she had obtained permission to dig in search of Paul’s body in the plot of land behind the fence of the police station. Colleagues and friends rallied around her, offering all kinds of assistance. Someone drove down to the family’s former dentist in Bolokiri to get Paul’s records. Someone else had a relative who worked at a new hospital in Abuja where a DNA test could be done to confirm whether the bones they had exhumed were Paul’s remains.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The taxi driver has no change, so Bibi runs inside while her boyfriend stands beside their bags. She shouts at Ajie to give her two hundred naira; she grabs the money from him and tosses a thousand-naira note at him. “Look at you, looking so proper!” she says to him with a twinkle in her eyes.
Ajie follows her outside. Bibi says, “This is my runaway brother you have heard so much about. Dotun, Ajie.”
Ajie and Dotun nod at each other and shake hands. Dotun lifts the two suitcases and leaves Bibi with only her handbag; Ajie takes one of the suitcases from him, and they make their way into the house.
Dotun seems eager but relaxed. Ajie looks at his carefully brushed hair and the sharp creases at the back of his striped shirt and decides that Dotun might have had a strict upbringing. He must have been raised by the sort of parents who were excessive with discipline but generous, however, with any sort of expenditure relating to schooling, self-improvement, and getting ahead in life. He fabricates Dotun’s family history even though he knows little about him. Bibi mentioned she met Dotun in the medical school library at the University of Ibadan, where they both studied. Seeing him, Ajie decides even that minor fact seems fitting. Dotun is the kind of boy who meets a girl at the library and then finds himself years later halfway across the country in order to meet her family.
Dotun steps into the parlor first and almost collides with Ma, who is coming out to meet them. She is startled and then beams at him, saying several welcomes, touching him by the shoulders, and asking how he is. The Utus have never been a family of huggers or kissers, but Ma falls into Bibi’s arms once she sees her, and Bibi wraps her arms around her, too, and it looks as if they will remain so forever.
—
The next morning at the funeral home, the undertaker leaves them alone in the room and shuts the door. Ma picked the casket herself. It is nothing flashy, just dark polished wood. The inside is padded with red velvet, and there are silver handles on the sides and the lid.
They have waited many years for an answer, and one has finally arrived, dry and diminished, resting inside the wooden box before them, and not one of them in the room knows how to approach the coffin. Ajie feels it’s his place to take the lead; he steps forward to the casket and opens it. When Ma draws close, he holds her hand while Bibi looks in from the other side of the casket. He holds Ma’s hand tight but can still feel the tremor running through it. These bones formed inside her, Ajie thinks. Bibi is the one who has received training over the past seven years on how to handle a human body. She must have spent enough time seeing how the human body can go wrong, how it can turn against itself, how it heals, grows, rots, and what it looks like once the flesh has fallen away. It is Bibi who leans close and touches Paul. Ma has informed the undertakers that they would prefer to arrange what is left of the body themselves.
—
“Lock the gate,” Ma goes outside to tell Ismaila after they get home. “If anyone comes, tell them we are not available. They can come back next week.”
“Yes, madam,” Ismaila says.
Ma joins everyone else in the parlor and sits down. Her face is still puffy and damp, her hands still tremble. Her eyes are welling up with tears again. Bibi’s face is turned toward Dotun, who has pulled his chair back a little bit.
“Whatever Paul went out for that day,” Ma continues, “it’s fine. I have settled it with my God. I mean, he was a child, and maybe he just wanted to go out and see. What I’m saying is that I don’t think he would want us to sit and mourn.” Dotun is nodding gravely and looking at Ma as she speaks. Ajie looks at Bibi and can’t read her at all — her eyes look tired but placid.
Ajie picks up a newspaper and goes to sit in the dining area. It is left to Dotun to initiate a conversation. He is mourning with this grieving family, but he also wants to take their minds off things.
“How is the work going?” he asks Ma. “Bibi said you have been working on a book about plants.”
“What?” Ma asks, looking like she’s been startled out of sleep.
“The book you are writing.”
“Yes, yes. It’s a scrapbook. I’ve been collecting some plant samples,” she says. “They are all probably going to go extinct from the area in a few years.” Her face comes alive. “I have a friend at the University of Port Harcourt who is typing it up and converting the pictures to electronic files.”
Ajie props the newspaper before him. How should he read it? He flips past a story about a Briton who was kidnapped by gunmen who are now demanding a ransom. He skims through the business page and reads an interview of a man who began the first online shopping business in the country, and it is all talk of markets and huge potential and challenges.
“Do you have a title for it yet?” Dotun keeps on.
“I was hoping to get suggestions from these ones.” Ma gestures toward her children. “The title I have is a little long: Ferns and Fauna of the Orashi Plain.”