It was very shameful for a man like my father, Barrister Difu Onyia, to die in Grove Life Hotel, Surulere. When the police came to our house to tell my mother that her husband had died, she looked at them for a long time without saying a word and then began to laugh. It was not that it was funny or because she was glad. Her laughter was because her mind couldn’t process the silly way death took her husband, my father. Neither of us shouted or cried. My face was blank but my mind was beating fast, wondering how death took him.
Such shameful death shouldn’t have happened to my handsome, well-built and lovely father. He should have died as he liked to live life, with everything good. Given a choice, he would have loved to die in a plane crash, perhaps. Or die from heart attack while jogging, trying to cover up impossible distance from our house to the Lagos State University gate. Or, even better, he would have loved to die at old age when the Reverend Father would come to his sick bed to give him chrism.
It is a merciless joke on my father to die just like that, without a word on a hot June afternoon in a Lagos hotel atop a mistress. I am wondering whether at the moment he wanted to die he knew. If he knew, he would have been fearfully angry. So angry it would have been strange that he didn’t frighten death away with one of his high rages.
The two policemen didn’t understand my mother’s laugh. The look on their faces suggested that my mother was going crazy but I didn’t see the laugh as unusual. Hysteria, I think. I have seen that before in a movie, where a woman who was told her son died laughed till she didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t believe that her son she sent to buy smoked fish had died from a motorcycle accident.
The policemen stood there quietly with pity on their faces; with circles of sweat under the armpit of their blue shirts, they waited for my mother to overcome the shock. When my mother finally stayed calm, they told her that my father was rushed to the hospital but it was late. His body was there waiting for unnecessary but official identification. If she wanted, they said, “We can take you there.”
“No, thanks officers, I’ll call someone. Where is the hospital?” My mother asked with a phonetic voice that makes me call her oyibo woman sometimes.
”University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, if you like, we will go with you madam,” they said.
My mother shook her head. ‘Thank you, officers. You have been very kind, my brother-in-law will come. And my daughter is here with me,” she smiled now, quietly.
It was amusing, as she was comforting and reassuring these strangers. My mother was pretending like there was nothing that she couldn’t take, including my father’s unfaithfulness and his timely death. She just wished that they leave. Thank you again,’ she said for the third time, like they have done one important thing.
“Take heart madam,” one of the policeman said. ‘May his soul rest in peace.’
”Amen,” she answered with a small voice, almost like a murmur.
They left; finally, their car slowly disappeared down from the bumpy road.
My mother sat down, then rested the back of her head with her hands on her forehead. I felt pity for her.
“Ifeoma, go and bring my phone,” I stood up and counted the steps as I climbed but she shouted at me to go fast. The clock on our wall was half past two in the afternoon. My uncle Idika would still be at his shop at Alaba International Market. He may go to the hospital from there in about thirty minutes. Probably, he might send his wife, Aunty Oby to come stay with my mother for the meantime. But, my mother I know, would not like her to come and take charge. But she could not avoid her. While my uncle would see to the ‘arrangements,’ Aunty Oby would take over our house in that her annoying over-sabi attitude.
Leave a Reply