Ali’s Journal: Death in her Arms

It felt like hot steam let out of a pressure cooker, when his legs brushed my arms, as I tried to struggle for space to sit in the uncomfortable and reeking bus. I did not give the moment much thought until the poorly dressed lady who was carrying him passionately sat beside me; her clothes probably had more holes than the potholes on roads of Lagos. I pondered deeply on how she could bear holding someone with such temperature? My conviction was that I would be scalded if my skin got in contact with him again, but she held him tightly.

From her face, I could read a blended message of love, pain and desperation. She was definitely caging a lot of emotions; they could flood the roads of Marina’s Broad Street if let out. Broad Street, not because it fits with how I present the moment but because that was the last place I saw someone with such a troubling look.

Noticing my consistent gaze, she tried to wear an emotional mask — she failed woefully at that. It was beyond her — society given — powers to hide her pain. Nigerian women are usually brought up with the mindset of sucking things in, but as it is with every unnatural pattern, her true nature, at the moment, was winning the battle. I also could not suck it in.

At first, I was hesitant but I finally reached out to her, “what is wrong madam?”. Her first response was silent, she sized me up with a sad smile carved out across her pale but beautiful face and returned her focus back to the boy — which was her son. I perceived her response as “this is beyond you stranger.”, so I pressed further, albeit gently, and said, “I might be able to help”. I was totally confident that she needed to be helped, as I could not find any veritable reason to think otherwise.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, with the potholes jerking us from time to time, she replied, “my pikin go soon die”. At the sound of this, my Nigerian mother instincts almost kicked in as I almost screamed, “He won’t die in Jesus name!” but the next pothole came at the right time, forcing me to swallow back the words before they escaped out of my lips. I’m glad the words didn’t spill, not because I am not a Christian, but it would have been me making the silent conversation between us become a public matter.

So, I said I said a silent prayer and asked her why she believed so? With her voice almost breaking into a cry, at regular intervals, she told me her story. For the past seven years, she had survived daily with a man who only accommodated her because they were forced to marry each other after she got pregnant for him. It was not just a sad story but a heart wrenching one — one that ended with her sitting beside me holding on to a dying child, running from a human monster who saw his son as nothing.

Her hope was tied to meeting up with an old friend, whom she had not spoken to for years, around my house. No family? Yes, no family. As usual, they told her to suck it in and she tried her best to. She had no friends — at least not that she could speak to because he had no phone. Slaving to satisfy his desires was all she did, but she could not watch her son die, or at least die terribly, so she decided to run. Run to where she could either take care of her son or have him die properly.

The sickness was obviously curable, and I was willing to help but I could not because I also had no money. At the time, I was a young Lagos business developer who was well-paid but I was also a lavish spender. As at the time I met the lady, I had spent five years on the job with no form of personal savings — save for the mandatory pension scheme. My car had recently packed up and I exhausted my borrowing options for the month already, that was why I was on the bus in the first place. I thought of all the moments I could have saved up and how there would have been some spare cash to help save this woman’s son.

The pangs of regret on how I gave her a glitter of hope earlier with my offer bit deeply! I ended up giving her some change and walking her to her friend’s — whom we luckily met. After exchanging numbers with her friend, I walked home sadly, my eyes could not blink all through the night with my heart racing. The thumping heart raced, even more, when her friend called me in the morning weeping…