One Day in the Life of Dr Toni Morenike
Dr Toni Morenike frowned and adjusted her glasses as she studied the man before her. Her frown concealed her mirth and mild disgust at the absurdity of the situation. Had anyone stepped into her office at that moment, they would see her, one of the country’s leading doctors, kneeling before a man’s—her ex-husband’s—splayed legs and partially exposed privates.
An outbreak of violet rashes, pustules, blotches, spots, and bumps that pulsated and erupted like mini volcanoes covered the unfortunate man’s lower abdomen and genitals. The main organ had collapsed into itself and was barely recognizable. Dr Toni extracted her phone from the front pocket of her lab coat and took a picture.
“Danladi, what you have is definitely an STD. You know it, and I know it. So why are you bothering me with this?”
Danladi groaned.
“What kind of beast did you get into bed with?” Decades of medical practice could not hide the disgust in her voice.
Danladi pulled up his trousers, grimacing. For one who did not care about what others thought of him, he had never been more embarrassed. He looked up to explain, again, that he had not slept with anyone: “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Toni caught herself and smiled: “I always warned you, didn’t I? All these little girls you chase up and down will put you in trouble one day. Now look what you’ve gotten yourself into. Big man like you. It’s just your wife I pity. I don’t know how that woman can endure it. I for sure couldn’t. By the way, have you told her?”
Danladi’s forehead furrowed, and his fair skin reddened. Seeing him in this condition brought an irrepressible nostalgia for things past, but she choked back the sentiment.
“Look, Toni. I swear to almighty God. Yes, you can laugh, but I really mean it. I didn’t do anything. I was in my office talking to the secretary one moment, and the next thing, I felt the urge to piss, and there it was. I swear on my dead grandmother.”
“And this secretary, is she not a woman?”
“Haba Toni. I know I’m a terrible person, but that is going too far. My own secretary.” The cloud of memory passed over his features, and he lowered his gaze.
“Yes, your own secretary. But what does it matter now?” She looked away, wistfully, at the growing shadows in the corners of the office where the light from the fluorescent lamp did not reach. Then she returned her gaze to Danladi.
“I don’t really want to know about it. It’s late, and I need to get home. I’ll write you a note and refer you to the urologist.” She noticed how his face dropped even more like a child whose teacher had promised to report to their parent. “No need to look like that. I’ll instruct him to be discreet.”
* * *
The next morning, Toni was in the middle of a teleconference, listening intently to a South American colleague rambling about certain hypotheses he had expounded upon in a recent seminar.
She watched his flaring nostrils and flapping gums supersized as they were on the screen and fantasized about making an offhand comment on how she would very much like to slap the man. Caught in her head, it took her a minute to realize that the man had stopped talking and was growing an unflattering shade of red. A phone was shrilling somewhere, and everyone had this look about them as if waiting for someone to say or do something. One could never be sure with these video chats. She just wished the stupid person would switch off their phone.
Someone coughed politely, and Toni realized it was her phone causing the disruption. Flustered, she excused herself and switched off her camera. Since the teleconferences began, they had all been subjected to disasters of crying children, insolent teenagers, exposed flesh, awkward code-switching, and other household debacles. She would be damned if she let any of her esteemed colleagues in on the spectacle of the Mickey Mouse boxer shorts she wore under her shirt.
Toni looked at her phone screen. It was Makin, a colleague from another teaching hospital in the city. He had left a message: “I need to speak to you urgently.” She debated whether to call him back or return to the teleconference, but the prospect of the South American doctor with his Spanish-laden and verbose-as-to-be incomprehensible English was not an exciting alternative.
She dialled Makin’s number. He came on almost immediately, his voice nasal and penetrating. She had known Makin since their days in the federal university. They also had a brief relationship as students on a federal scholarship. That fling had eased the solitude of dark European winters. She still retained a fondness for him. Makin was a fast talker who tripped over his words and whose speech moved in inverse proportion to the glacial speed of his thoughts.
“So what’s this about Makin? Why the hurry?”
“Ah, Toni. I don’t even know where to start. You won’t believe the case that presented itself before me this morning. Fantastically disgusting, I tell you.” Toni fell back on the sofa and laughed. Only Makin would say “fantastically disgusting” without missing a beat.
“Don’t laugh,” he continued, “I’m telling you. I saw this man with an impossibly sordid case of gonorrhoea this morning. Wet splotches. The whole penis shrunk. My God, it was something to behold. This could be something big. Things like this make me feel like a student again, you know. Like I’m doing actual work and not all this administrative nonsense.”
“Ah, Makin. Ever the gossip. Since when did you begin to specialize in STDs?”
“My dear, that’s beside the point. A question of curiosity and all that. You know how these morbid cases fascinate me. The poor man was distraught, and he swore by Allah that he had never had relations with anyone outside of his three wives.”
“And of course, you didn’t believe him.”
“What do you mean I didn’t believe him?”
“Would this man happen to be Danladi, you know, my ex?”
“I’m telling you one thing, Toni, and you’re telling me another. What’s my business with your ex-husband?”
That grabbed her attention. She switched the call to loudspeaker and grabbed a pen and notepad from the desk drawer. She listened as Makin described detail by detail the case that Danladi had presented the previous night, scribbling notes and interrupting to ask questions. When he was done, she said,
“It all sounds very interesting, Makin, but it sounds like nothing more than the advanced stage of an infection, admittedly with some variations and things I’m not sure about. I can’t see why we should waste time with this anyway. Refer the patient to someone who actually knows this stuff. Daniel or Olakunle, maybe and save yourself the stress. Now, tell me, how are madam and the kids?”
* * *
Traffic snailed along her way to the hospital. Seated as she was at the back of the car and positioned directly in front of the air conditioner, Toni could still feel the rolled-up windows expanding and refracting from the heat. Outside, a legion of boys and the odd girl clad mostly in rags darted and raced between cars, battling each other for the attention of drivers.
Some wiped windshields with murky liquid sloshing in buckets. Some shoved newspapers in the faces of motorists. Others balanced trays of salted biscuits, plantain chips, and iced Coca-Cola on their heads, hawking their wares in shrill voices. Some kids lumbered behind, steps unsteady, having only just learned to walk. These thrust out grimy hands and pleaded for change with piteous expressions. To the practised eye, their actions revealed a calculation borne of experience, an experience unthinkable in children so young.
Toni observed in the rearview mirror a boy laden with newspapers making his way to her car. She balanced her glasses on the ridge of her nose and buried her face in her phone. The boy caught up with the car and, not to be ignored, plastered the day’s papers all over the window. Toni continued to feign ignorance, but something on the front page caught her eye.
Traffic picked up, and her car started to roll. The boy ran alongside the car, performing a balancing act with one hand holding a bunch of newspapers stacked on his shoulder and the other holding the paper that had gotten the big madam’s attention against his chest.
Toni told her driver to stop and wound her window down. She pointed at the newspaper, and the boy handed it to her. Tens of children were already converging on her car. She fumbled in her bag, found a crisp five hundred note, and flung it at the boy who had set his wares on the ground with his hands on his hips to catch his breath. Her driver stepped on the accelerator hard and shot away. Her blood cooled with incredulity as she studied the bold black letters emblazoned on the front page: PHANTOM STD! SCANDAL AT UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS! THE NEW AIDS?
According to the paper, sources at an unnamed hospital alerted the press only last night to the outbreak of a new disease suspected to be afflicting men all over the city. The words swam before her eyes. How? Who? And to embellish the situation in this most irresponsible manner? She threw the paper to the side, took up her phone, and placed a call. On the fourth ring, a familiar voice came on.
“I know you’re angry, but let me explain first,” the voice said, laughing.
“You might find it funny, but I certainly don’t, Emeka. This story has to disappear.” Emeka was the chief press officer of the newspaper and an old friend.
“That’s not how it works, Toni. You know that. It’s not as if I didn’t try to contact you last night. I called and called and got no reply.”
“Emeka, you don’t seem to realize what you’ve done. You’ve put all of us in trouble. Even worse, you’ve put yourself in hot water.”
“Come on, Toni. Now you’re threatening me. You should be giving me something, anything.”
Toni chewed on it for a moment. The news was out there already, and she didn’t know the first thing about it. What she did know was that the minister for health, to whom she reported, would want the story quashed. The administration was already reeling under all the bad press of the recession, the extremist movement in the West, the secessionists in the North. There was also the issue of the disappeared bodies of seventy-two student protesters. The president would be furious.
“Toni, are you still there?”
“I’m still here,” she replied wearily. “Look, I saw a case like the newspaper mentioned only last night. One case, Emeka. How does one case become an epidemic?”
Emeka was silent for a moment. “You mean you haven’t heard? Early this morning, one of our journalists came in with—”
Toni cut him short. “I can’t help but feel like you’ve done something incredibly stupid, Emeka. Incredibly stupid. Let me just advise you as a friend.”
She thought the wisest course of action would be for Emeka to put out another article stating that this was all lies and propaganda stirred by subversive elements who wished to see the name of the great motherland put to shame and humiliation. The regime would see to it that they would be spoken to in the language they understood. He would have to recall as many newspapers as possible and reroute all distribution to the government house. She would convince her boss to put out a statement as well.
“And what does your boss have to say about this?” said Emeka. She detected a testiness in his voice but was in no mood to fight. She felt less anger and more pity for him, for his mistake.
“Do you really think he will contradict me?”
There was a momentary silence in which she could visualize the permutations, combinations, and gears playing out in Emeka’s head. In the background, perhaps in another room, a baby began to cry.
“And Emeka,” she said, “I think you should take madam and the kids for a long vacation. Trust me, you may be needing it sooner than you realize.” A rancid taste filled her mouth as she said this.
* * *
Toni entered the hospital through the back entrance and, without hesitating, instructed her secretary, a young girl with almost translucent skin, that no member of the press be allowed within thirty feet of the hospital. Once in her office, she collapsed into a chair. On the table, her phone was ringing. She stared at the caller ID. It was her boss, the minister of public health. She let it ring. She needed some time to formulate her response.
She was gearing herself up for the long day ahead with deep meditative breaths when a doctor from the night shift, one of her assistants, barged in. He looked haggard, and insomnia ringed his eyes. Her immediate urge to scold him dissipated. He said nothing, merely flicking his head toward the corridor. She rose and followed him.
It took several shallow inhales and one prolonged expulsion of air for her to fully process the battlefield scene unfolding before her. Men lined the corridors, standing, sitting, laid out, belly-up, on beds, with bewildered nurses attending them. There were fat men, enormous men, short men, men with bald heads, men with full beards, and gaunt, ashen men. They all had one thing in common. Seated or standing, they had their legs splayed and were contorted in various stages of pain, their expressions a montage of horrors.
“My God,” she said.
“Madam, you don’t even know the half of it,” said her assistant.
“My God,” she repeated, stunned. “What in the world is going on here?”
“We can’t say, doctor. When the first one came in last night, we thought it was gonorrhoea, but half the men in the city cannot suddenly catch gonorrhoea like this. We tried to reach you several times, but you must have been asleep. Now, we are hearing that it is the same in hospitals all over the country.”
There was a commotion outside, and all the staff rushed to the windows. A bevvy of journalists armed with microphones, cameras, and other media paraphernalia strained against the barricade the security guards had mounted. Some of the guards were dishing out blows left and right.
“Call the security company,” said Toni to no one in particular, “tell them we need double the number of guards. Pay them whatever they ask.”
In the ward, she walked down the row of beds, taking in the devastation. She consoled one man, commiserated with another, patted a third on the back. The fourth man, shrunken and huddled in his private misery, held her attention. He was seated on the floor, breathing in measured inhalations as if he had only a limited air ration. She fell to one knee and looked into his rheumy eyes, enlarged from shock, pain, and unfathomable suffering.
“What happened to you?” she said.
The man exhaled as if reaching for the surface from a dream and began to spout a stream of barely comprehensible pidgin from which she could only identify the odd word.
“Somebody help me out here,” Toni said and leaned in to try and make sense of that jumble of words made worse by the din from the mass of groaning men. Her assistant knelt beside her and ducked close to the man’s mouth.
“He’s from the south, my countryman. I understand most of what he’s saying.”
The man had been panhandling when a white Lexus SUV with a police van hot on its tail nearly knocked him down. He almost fell into the open drainage by the side of the street, saved only by the table of a woman who sold MTN recharge cards. Confused and in shock, he felt a terrible urge to urinate. Standing by the side of the open gutter, he opened his fly and saw his organ. Only then did his brain begin to process the sensation of hot knives on his skin.
He stopped at this point in his story, looked at Toni, and then looked away.
She could not blame him for lying. His embarrassment aroused in her not pity but a tangential, amused curiosity. She watched the tortured rising and falling of his chest and noted two things, one risible, the other less so: the fact of his existence and her surprise at this fact. She realized then that she had never really imagined these people as people, as living, breathing beings with lives, and loves, and sorrows, and troubles. She had always accepted them as the sordid adornments of life. Now she was forced to think of them as sexual beings too.
She pressed his hand.
“Tell him we will do everything we can to assist him.”
The man snatched his hand out of hers and levelled his gaze on her, scrutinizing her as if parsing her thoughts. His eyes became at once clear and filled with an insolence that had been missing only moments ago. He began to speak rapidly, shooting the words at her like bullets, with pauses to gasp for air. She understood little of what he was saying but could not mistake the venom charging his words. Beside her, her assistant stiffened.
“Please ma, allow me to throw this insubordinate bastard out,” he said.
“What is he saying?”
“He is very rude, ma.”
She turned to her assistant, and he cowered: “My friend, will you tell me what he is saying before I have you thrown out.” Her assistant grumbled and began translating to Toni in the pauses where the man gasped.
“He says you can’t assist him. He says he is beyond help, and why should he receive help from a—” Her assistant paused; he had the expression of a child caught wetting the bed. Toni nodded for him to continue. “Why should he receive help from a bitch like you? Madam, please let me throw him out.”
She could not help the blood rising to and heating her face and neck.
“Me? What did I do? Am I the cause of his problem, or did I send him, or any of the—” she swept the ward with her arms, “to go around sleeping with roadside sluts. Please tell him he can’t just come in here and insult people as he likes, whether he is in pain or not.”
The man studied her, flexing and unflexing his fingers. Toni had a fleeting vision of those tough, calloused fingers around her neck. Something about the way he held himself like a coiled spring told her that he would have choked the life out of her were it not for his unimaginable pain.
“He says to ask you why he shouldn’t insult you. He says is it not because we are allowing abominations like women head doctors that God is punishing all the men in this country?
“What is he talking about? That makes no sense whatsoever. Doesn’t he understand that sleeping around has consequences?” Toni said. She was trying desperately to keep herself from screaming. The moaning men, the sulfuric ooze that charged the air, the nurses stumbling about with gritted teeth and wide eyes, this clearly insane man, her day was beginning to take on all the trappings of a nightmare.
Toni studied the man’s face as he spoke to her assistant. She longed to shake him by the shoulders. Beneath the hatred that corrugated his forehead and transfigured his features into a black mask was a shadow of innocence.
“He swears on his life that he has never been with a woman,” said her assistant with some hesitancy. Toni wondered if he was holding back something from her. She nodded for him to go on.
The young man was speaking to them from a place far away, as though through a tunnel, seeing but not seeing them. The pauses in his speech had been replaced by a low, chilling laugh that needed no translation. Yet Toni found she was coming to feel less anger and more pity and confusion in the face of this youth who made her feel like a gnat in the eye of a magnifying glass.
How was it possible for someone to believe such nonsense? The question answered itself in the same instant, not as a single, unified thought but as glimpses of words heard in places not remembered, words read in books long forgotten, and in experiences lived. In the face of an unyielding, indifferent universe, the soul will find something to cling on to to maintain a semblance of sanity in the face of the absurd. Some, like this boy, find it in misogyny. Some find it in religion. Many find it in ancestral hatreds, in the nation-state, in socialism, in every and any type of ism, for this is what makes us human.
The youth now seemed to her so ancient in his righteous anger that her insides coiled with remorse for her initial impressions. She wondered if Danladi was also suffering in this manner and if this thing could be driving people insane.
She patted his hand once more and rose alongside her assistant.
The man watched them rise.
“Fuck you and your help.”
Toni smiled and walked away.
* * *
“It’s the same with all of them, ma,” said her assistant. “These red and purple patches that come out of nowhere and then the skin falling off just after. It’s horrible.”
“You mean to tell me you believe this out-of-nowhere nonsense,” she said.
Her assistant fidgeted and tugged at his collar. “No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .you know.” She smiled at how hard he was trying to impress her. Pathetic was the word to describe this situation, the word to describe Danladi’s face as he squirmed before her last night. He hadn’t called her yet, and she wondered if he was okay. Even with the evidence before her, she found it difficult to associate the monstrosity eating him up with these pitiable men here. Danladi was a wealthy man, a high roller. He couldn’t possibly be down with the same thing.
Gasps came from the waiting room.
They raced there to find a gaggle of nurses chattering excitedly. Toni’s phone buzzed, and she fished it out of her pocket. Seventy-two missed calls. She looked up to find her assistant’s face drained of blood; he breathed as if he had been running up a hill. She followed his gaze to the TV.
On it was the president in full babanriga and a tall hat that accentuated his bony features and hook nose. She realized then that the matter was beyond their control, for an appearance of the president on live television was almost a mythical event. He had not appeared after the hullabaloo of the youth protests; he had not appeared after the threats of secession up north; he had not deigned to make an appearance when Western powers accused him of funding terrorism; he remained in the solitude of the presidential palace as the economy came crashing down and the price of gari shot to five hundred a cup.
Citizens felt his presence through incoherent public announcements and threats of speaking to people in the languages they understood, in the rumours of disappearances and exiles, rivals used as target practice in the streets. It had taken mental effort for Toni to disbelieve the latest rumour that the seat of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces was being filled by an impostor-in-chief from Sudan. Life had become, for the population, a grand ball in a hall of mirrors.
She rubbed her eyes at the spectacle of that mythical creature outside its lair, squinting into the camera. His wispy monotone nearly deceived her as to the impact of the words behind it.
“We have firm evidence that this is a plot on the part of Western governments who have introduced this virus through certain underground laboratories that we are, of course, in the process of discovering and destroying,” the president was saying.
He paused to take a sip of water, adjusted his glasses, and looked up again into the camera. His eyes blazed with the fires of his military origins.
“Rest assured we saw it coming and have put things in place to deal with the virus. In fact, the vaccine is being delivered to hospitals all over the country as I speak. I will not hesitate to add that the proliferation of a parallel epidemic of brothels and other such seedy places led us to this situation. This is due to a severe breakdown in the morals and historic values of our great country. As such we have unilaterally decided to create a ministry for indiscipline and moral conduct which will be tasked with moving from city to city to rid our motherland of such ills.
“I exhort you, men and women of our great nation, to be faithful in protecting our family values and showing a good example to our children who are the leaders of tomorrow. Only in this way can we beat this terrible tragedy that has befallen us. With the grace of the almighty God, we shall overcome.”
He made a fist and held it aloft. The image of the flag slowly came to the fore and blurred his face. The anthem churned in the background, and the edges of the screen flashed with pictures of silently cheering people and ancient women clinging on to the leader and weeping from the ecstasy of his touch.
* * *
Her phone rang again. It was her boss.
“I presume you have heard the president’s speech,” he said.
“What the hell was that?” she said.
“There is no need to panic, Dr Morenike. Everything is under control. The president is calling together a cabinet of ministers first thing tomorrow morning. I need your report before the end of the day.”
He clicked off.
That relaxed tone did not fit in with the situation. He had been calling her, and she ignored him; he was not one to completely overlook that. Collapsing onto the waiting room sofa, she tried to make sense of what she had heard. Why the disproportionate reaction? Was it because it was a male problem? If it were a female problem, would anybody open their mouths wide to talk about it? Were women not being violated and beaten and tortured? Where is the outrage?
She remembered that the following year was an election year. The weight of that illumination bore down and made her immensely tired. Taking advantage of such a delicate situation, all this propaganda, this scheming, it was all so tiring. Her thoughts took on a darker turn. Could the administration have manufactured the disease? What was real and what was false? What was true and what was untrue? She dismissed the questions from her mind with some difficulty. Yet, the embers of those illusions glowed in the places where the light of consciousness would not reach.
She felt a migraine coming on.
“Madam is everything alright?” her assistant asked.
“Fuck them. Fuck them all,” she said in a whisper not low enough to drown out the shocked look on the face of her assistant.
* * *
Night found Toni on the living room sofa, vegetating in front of the TV, staring at the screen without seeing it. Her fingers trembled as she dug into the pack of popcorn squeezed between her thighs and shoved popcorn by the handfuls into her mouth. Monisola, her on-off girlfriend, studied her from behind the vapours of a pot of steaming rice, brows furrowed with concern.
“I don’t see why you aren’t taking this serious, babe.”
Toni made no reply but continued wolfing down her popcorn. Her lips shone with grease.
“Won’t you even answer me?”
Toni turned and stared at Monisola for a long time, at the pout of her sensual lips. Toni loathed Monisola’s dismal timing, her impatience with the arid stretches of silence that permeate life in steady relationships, her unabashed youth. These moments of awareness made Toni conscious of her age and irritated her.
“What do you expect me to say?” said Toni.
“What do I expect you to say? For God’s sake, Toni, you’re a doctor, and it’s an epidemic.”
“No, it’s not,” said Toni. “That a handful of men have come down with an STD doesn’t mean there’s an epidemic.”
“And those rumours of men with no sexual contact getting the disease?”
“No sexual contact, my ass. Don’t tell me you too believe that rubbish.”
Monisola lowered her gaze and returned to the plantains sizzling in the pan.
“You’re just stressed, Toni. You’ve needed a break for a while.”
“What do you mean stressed?” Vexation was rising in her now. “Can’t you see what the real issue is? A handful of men are sick, and suddenly everyone is up in arms. If it were something to do with women, everyone would be saying, ‘Yes I know, but that’s a different thing.’ What’s different about it, I say. Tell me, what’s different?”
“You don’t need to shout at me, Toni. I don’t have anything to do with this. I was just surprised you don’t seem to be taking it seriously.”
But Toni had stepped on a freight train whose brakes had worn off, and Monisola’s calmness was aggravating her. That calmness was the equipoise to her neurosis. It was what had brought them together and broken the barrier of their once student-teacher relationship. Yet Toni found it got in the way in situations like this.
“I say tell me what’s different. They’ll call them whores and Jezebels. All those idiot pastors in the church will be shouting up and down about how God is punishing us. Just you wait. Everybody’s just chasing political clout, and if they can oppress women while at it, all the sweeter. Men are coming down with the consequences of their actions, and you are telling me to break my head over it. Abeg, don’t annoy me this evening.”
“But just think about it. What if it’s something bigger than you imagine? Or what if it starts to affect women too? And if Danladi comes down with it, how will you explain that to Junior?”
“And so what if he comes down with it? So what? Tell me, so what?”
“Okay, let’s just drop it.”
Toni turned to the TV, but her thoughts had become even more unfocused. From time to time, she looked at her phone. Monisola’s words danced around in her head and unsettled her. She stood up and walked down the corridor to her son’s bedroom. The door was ajar.
Beneath the colourful blanket, Junior’s body expanded and contracted to the rhythm of his breath. Toni pulled back the blanket and caressed his face. He looked so much like his father, that enormous nose, the soft, almost feminine chin, the elongated eyelashes of a doe. Six years had gone by so fast. They told her it was impossible at her age to have a child. She knew that drove a wedge between her and Danladi.
Danladi had been good to her. He had never treated her badly in twenty-seven years of marriage. He had stayed by her side through the embarrassments of the IVF procedures, her terror of being inseminated like a sow, the unbearable despair after the sixth miscarriage, the wet beast stink of the huts of native doctors that still jolted her out of sleep, hyperventilating like a hunted animal.
Toni remembered the first child, the mother who had shown up at their door at two in the morning, screaming for her baby back, or she would slit her own throat and her blood would be on their heads. She recalled her refusal to go to the parties of any friends who had children until they gradually lost most of their friends.
She saw herself again, at fifty-one, over the toilet bowl, barely able to believe the two distinct red lines on the blue and white test strip, oblivious to the overflowing tap and the water that was rising to her knees. Without thinking and half-blinded by the concentric circles that filled her vision, she got into her car and drove straight to Danladi’s office.
She barged in, not fully taking in the despairing face of his assistant or the poor man’s desperate cries of “oga is busy, ma”. She threw open the door to the awful spectacle of Danladi’s wrinkled ass clenching and unclenching between the raised legs of his secretary, his heartless grunting, and his secretary’s squeals that reminded her of a stuck pig.
The image drew a wry smile from her now. Its vividness surprised her. Not all memories weaken with time; some grow edges like knives. Yet, she saw it as through someone else’s eyes; it had lost its sting. Toni had stood there aghast, hands pressed to her belly. She remembered not much beyond that except the wheezing of the PA. They later told her she had fainted.
She thought about Danladi now, his creaking body heaving on top of that girl, and pitied him. How ashamed he must have been and how ashamed he must still be. Am I a terrible person to laugh at his misery? But what he did to me was unforgivable. In the desolation of her heart, she attained a kinship with all the women across time who had borne such humiliations, their vulnerability, their precarity.
“You are too old to be divorcing,” they told her after she made her decision.
“Where will you find the strength to take care of a child alone at your age and with your job.”
“Yes, you are a big official, but money will not keep your bed warm at night or care for you when you’re old o.”
She wished them all dead, all the hypocritical sons and daughters of bitches. She trembled from the vehemence of her own emotion. Her son stirred. His eyelids fluttered, and he mumbled something in his sleep. Had Danladi’s actions pushed her into a rage she hadn’t acknowledged? Or was it her father, the patriarch? Or any number of lovers along the thread of her life? Another memory floated to the surface. The elusive face of a man. The shock of a blow to the face. She abandoned this thought. It hurt her head.
Toni settled again on the young man from earlier that day. He wasn’t much different from her in the end. Who knew his experiences at the hands of some nameless woman? It was ridiculous to think that all men were evil because of what Danladi did to her. She sighed.
* * *
Toni woke up the next morning with the sensation of the young man’s eyes burning a hole in her chest. She turned over. Monisola was still sleeping. She went to the bathroom and, in the mirror, saw a patch growing just below her collarbone and above her left breast. She rubbed it. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t disappear either. Strange. She shuffled to the living room and turned on the TV, reducing the volume. The early morning news was on. On it, a market woman was screaming into the interviewer’s face. Without the distraction of sound, her features were an accurate depiction of terror, the spectre of one who has seen death and knows she will not escape. Then the woman did a bizarre thing. She thrust a naked breast into the face of the interviewer, and on it was a patch identical to that on Toni’s chest. Toni involuntarily rubbed at her chest. It had begun to itch. In the other room, her son’s snores disturbed the quiet.
Featured Photo: Steve Johnson
About the author
Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Eviano George is an ESL teacher somewhere in the vast wilderness that is the Mexican countryside. He has an unhealthy obsession with learning new stuff and is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and competent in a few—the poor man’s Leonardo da Vinci, or so he likes to think. Fiction happens to be the latest in a long line of obsessions.
