The Smugglers
Photo: Raphael Lovaski
The baby died at 9:50 pm. But the young doctor scrawled 10: 00 am on the death certificate. She lay on the tiny bed as though asleep and would wake up any moment to suckle on her mother’s breast. But upon closer inspection, one could see that she was yellowish, the signature of death, death wanting to show the world that it has claimed one more life.
Her mother, Alice, stood by the bed, “Is she dead, my daughter? Is she dead?”
The nurse covered the tiny body with a white bedsheet, ignoring Alice.
“Tell me, nurse, is she dead?”
“You can’t be here,” the nurse said as she turned to face Alice. “Let’s go to the next room, and I will tell you.”
“Is she dead?” Alice muttered repeatedly as she was led to the consulting room.
The doctor sat behind his desk, scrawling on a piece of paper. The nurse ushered Alice into a chair, the fan above swirling. The doctor scrawled still. To get his attention, the nurse cleared her throat. The doctor looked up. He was a thin, bearded man, not bigger than Alice.
“This is the woman,” the nurse said.
“And she’s been in to see her?”
“Yes, Doc.”
The doctor faced Alice, his eyes boring into her.
“We did all we could. We lost her.”
The room felt as if the earth had veered off its axis. The fan yet swirled. And Alice’s heart beat erratically in her chest. She had a voice, but she seemed to have lost it.
The baby had been ill. Her body had been hot as if on fire throughout the week, and she suckled less at the breast. Alice had asked for a day off at the school cafeteria, where she worked as a cook. Her boss begrudgingly gave her half a day and warned her to be behind the stove before the children came to lunch. In the morning, she bathed her baby, sang to her and fed her. No sooner had the food entered the baby’s stomach than she puked on her mother’s lap. The baby cried shrilly. Alice was at her wit’s end. She seemed at a loss, and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. What galled her the most was that the baby could not speak and could not tell her mama the cause of her pain.
“Is there anyone with you?” the doctor asked.
She’d carried her then to the drugstore across the street. The old man behind the counter took one look at the child and said, “Malaria.” He went to the shelf and picked a bottle. “Give her a teaspoonful, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night before you go to bed.” Alice paid and left the store.
The baby cried on her back, and hot mucus soiled her dress.
In the house, she bolted the door and gave the baby a teaspoonful of the medicine, just as the man behind the counter had said. The cries subsided, and the body became less warm. There was hope yet. That was when both of them, mother and daughter, drifted into sleep, the breeze from the mango tree behind her window wafting through the shutters and music from a neighbour’s radio drifting into the room.
Alice woke up with a start. It was past the half-day the boss had given. How long she’d slept, she could not tell. The baby breathed easily beside her. She put the back of her palms on the baby’s forehead. She was a tad hot. Then she stirred, and the shrill cries began.
“Is there no one with you?” the doctor asked again, gently. He’s been around death long enough to know this wasn’t the time or place to lose his temper.
Alice seemed jaded and unable to understand anything. He would have to put her to sleep for a while.
The nurse nudged her lightly. “Where is your husband?”
“I have no husband.”
“Where is the child’s father?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
She’d given the baby another spoonful of the medicine. She vomited everything onto the floor. Her body was hot like burning coals, and her breathing seemed laboured. That was when she decided to take her to the hospital.
At the hospital, two nurses sat chatting behind a table in the emergency department. There was no queue. One of them, the shorter, took the baby and checked her vitals. The other one, thin, with long eyelashes, sat staring at her phone’s screen.
“This dress will go with those high heels,” she said, flashing the screen of her phone before the face of the other nurse.
“I say, but the price,” the other one said, listening to the stethoscope.
“Will you attend the wedding?”
“Mama, how long has your child been sick?”
“This wedding is the talk of the town.”
“For the past week,” Alice said lamely.
“For the past week, and you are bringing her now?” the short nurse growled.
“These are some of the things you do, and foolish people start blaming nurses.” The thin one looked up from her phone and snarled at Alice.
“I’m sorry, ma.”
“I’m sorry, ma,” the short nurse mimicked. “This child should have been here long time ago. Look at her temperature. Anyway, I’m not a doctor. If anything happens to her, it’s not on my head.”
They led her to a room and showed her a bed. She laid her daughter on the bed and sat beside her.
“The doctor is in the other room. He will be here soon.”
The room smelled of camphor and antiseptic. Two or three mothers hovered uneasily around their children. The hands of the clock on the wall tossed minutes carelessly towards nine p.m. That was when the doctor came.
“What about your relatives,” the doctor asked.
“They are far away in Bono.”
“I will leave you with the nurse. I have other patients to attend to.” The doctor turned to the nurse. “See to it that she’s okay.”
The baby had been asleep when the doctor came around the bed. He looked at the nurse’s report, scribbled something on a sheet of paper, and asked Alice to get it at the dispensary. The nurse at the dispensary looked at the sheet. “We have run out of stock. Besides, insurance doesn’t cover this medicine,” she said, barely looking at Alice. “There’s a pharmacy just across the street. They have it there. Tell whoever is behind the counter that Nurse Adubea sent you.” Something about the way she said it made it seem like Alice was been done a favour. A taxi driver honked widely at her as she crossed the road to the pharmacy. She returned only to see a nurse covering her daughter with a white bedsheet.
“So, you really don’t have anyone?” The nurse asked, looking worryingly at her.
Alice nodded as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. She had no one. A friend brought her to the city one night after they had both failed their secondary school certificate exams. She’d wanted to go to a teachers’ college after secondary school, but in her second year, she had become friends with a group of girls known for their truancy, and her studies had suffered. Her friend had promised her good work, “and touch wood, within a year, you’ll make enough money for a resit.” She worked in an eatery, serving food and drinks to customers by day and sleeping on the cold floor by night. The times were tough. Then a tall man with whiskers for moustache took a fancy to her. He told her he worked in a bank. She believed him. Told her the brand-new BMW was his. She believed that too. They would go for rides in the park along the river, entangle their hands in each other’s as they strolled along the riverbank, and after he’d parked the car behind the trees, away from the prying eyes of strollers, he would ravish her body wolfishly on the back seat of the BMW. He only took her to his apartment once. Came a time when Alice didn’t see the man with whiskers for moustache, her lover, for two weeks. After work, she visited the apartment.
It was an old man she met.
“I’m looking for Ben.”
“He’s no more here.”
Her heart skipped violently.
“What do you mean he’s no more here?”
“He was my driver. He stole from me, and I sacked him.”
The ground seemed to open, to swallow her.
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. Who are you?”
“Never mind.”
On her way back, Alice felt light in the head and, not long after, vomited by the side of the road.
At work not long after, when she could no longer hide her bulging stomach, her madam, a pious Christian, sacked her without pay. She couldn’t keep a pregnant lady, one about to bring a brat into the world at that, in her eating place. It was bad for business. Her friend took her in until she gave birth. After her baby came, her friend made her know she’d overstayed her welcome, with hints here and there. Sometimes, her friend would lock the door of their kiosk and stay away deep into the night. Other times, her friend’s lover would sleep over, and all four of them, including her little girl, would cram into that tiny space. That was when she knew her time was up. When her baby was a month old, she strapped her behind her back one sunny day and scorched the city for work. As luck would have it, she found work at the school canteen up the hill. She was given a room close to the kitchen so that she could wake up at dawn and work till dusk. It was tiring, but she loved the peace and the free food the school offered. She seemed on the path to recovery and had started saving to resit her exams until the baby took sick.
“My baby, what will happen to her?” she finally managed to ask the nurse.
“Wait here. Let me see to it.”
Alice gathered her scattered thoughts like pearls around her. What would her parents say? They had warned her not to travel to the city. She had defied them. What about the villagers? They would mock her and use her as an example of everything wrong with this generation. This generation that wants to jump before walking. This generation that, like the firefly that dances around the fire, forgets that it is dancing itself into ashes. No, she wouldn’t go back to the village. That cord has been severed. She would learn from this. Never would she allow another man to fool her like the man who grew whiskers for moustache did. Never.
The nurse came back.
“The baby is in the mortuary. You have to pay the bill, and they will release her to you.”
“How much?”
The nurse looked at the slip of paper in her hand.
“5000 cedis.”
“What?”
“5000 cedis.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“What are you going to do? How much do you have?”
“500 cedis.”
The nurse suppressed a deep laughter that would have left her coughing and in tears. “You are joking. Do you know what they do to unclaimed bodies?”
Alice stared.
“They throw them into Potter’s Field at Mile 11. Do you want that to happen to your girl?”
Alice shook her head.
“Let’s go see the mortuary man.”
The mortuary man was a thin, squat man sitting at the entrance of the mortuary and listening to the radio. The nurse went to him, and they whispered for a while.
The wind was cold, and Alice hugged her dress. After what seemed an eternity, the nurse walked back to Alice.
“He says bring it.”
The mortuary man went into the mortuary and returned with the baby. She wasn’t cold yet since she hadn’t been in the refrigerator.
“If you are caught, you don’t know me. I don’t know you.”
Alice nodded as she strapped the dead child behind her.
The lane from the mortuary to the security post wasn’t long. Just about 100 feet. Alice trudged on.
“Hey, stop. Where are you going with that baby at your back at this time of day?”
“I . . . we have been discharged, and we are going home.”
“I . . . we,” the security man mimicked. “Who discharged you? Where is your slip?”
An on-rushing taxi honked at the gate.
“Wait here, don’t go anywhere,” the security man said as he jogged towards the taxi.
“Emergency. Where is emergency?” someone shouted from the taxi.
“Drive ahead to the neem tree and turn— ” The security man turned sharply to his left, “Hey! Wait. Lady. Where do you think you are going? I have not finished with you.” Alice had seen her opportunity and taken it. The man was torn between leaving his post and going after Alice in the darkness.
The street was deathly silent as Alice made a mad dash into the darkness. The only sound she heard was her slippers as they hit the ground.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Johnson Appiah holds an MA in English Literature. His stories have appeared in The Kalahari Review, African Writers Magazine, Munyori Literary Magazine, Brittle Paper amongst others.
