We Are Able

Episode 14

We got well inside Bode’s room but he wasn’t there.

Mother adjourned to the toilet to look for him. It was
futile.

“Bode! Bode! Bode!” my mother must have shouted,
going by the look of her mouth. She was shaking
visibly. Maybe Bode had answered the call of her
mother, I thought.
“She must have gone bodily to meet her mother in the
herbalist’s place?” my mother said.
“In this dead night?” I replied. “I don’t think so.”
“Hmm…hey, I’m afraid Rose. What are we going to tell
John now?”

“Like how? Did we do anything to him?” I said and
frowned.

“Daddy won’t take that from us, I hope you know him,”
she said.

“Enh, but how is this our concern?” I replied, bending to
peep under the bed to find him. He wasn’t there.

“Even Toyosi would do anything to put us in trouble,”
she said. “She would take us to court and ask us to
provide her son by all means.”
I threw down the pillow, perhaps he was hiding
underneath it. I opened the wardrobe and even pulled
out the drawer. We were both acting nervously as
though we were running mental. How possibly would
someone fold himself into a wardrobe? That thought didn’t strike my head.

My mother even raised the mattress up and left it out of
order after discovering that Bode wasn’t under it. The
last place we would go search for him was my father’s
room. We feared the man so much.
“Bode!” my mother was calling as she left for the
parlour. She returned to say Bode wasn’t there. We
have virtually checked the whole flat except my
father’s room.

“Maybe we should go and check him in your room,” I
said.

“No,” my mother disagreed at once. “Your father will
suspect us if we do that.”
“So what’s your suggestion?” I asked.
“Let’s just retreat and return to your room to continue
our sleep and do as if nothing has happened. Tomorrow
morning we shall be sorting it out.”
“Alright then,” I said, stepping ahead of her. I can’t wait
to be on my bed again because I am tired. But this time
around I would make sure I don’t sleep with my two
eyes closed to avoid being called in the dream. I would
rather sleep like a duck, I thought.
“Rose, don’t go yet,” my mother signaled to me. “Let’s
tidy up the room we’ve scattered.
I rushed to the wardrobe to arrange Bode’s cloth as
they were earlier, then I found a calabash.
I was shocked. I tapped my mother to call her
attention. She was shocked too when she saw it.

She shook like a leaf blown by a gentle breeze. Her
mouth convulsed.
“Who put that there?” she was asking. If she hadn’t
spoken with sign language I would have thought that
she wasn’t directing the question to me but to someone else. How would I know who put the calabash there? The thing was merely half-filled with
sand.

My mother feared that it would implicate us if father
should discover it there later, so she picked it up after
doing sign of the cross over her face and shoulder so
that she could go and throw it far away. As she got to
the entrance of Bode’s room, someone appeared at the
door. It was John!

For minutes I felt the quietness of disability. Mother
was shedding hot tears, father was pointing to her face;
Bode was staring under father’s armpit in horror. My
heart whispered, ‘I am disabled’.
A slap was done to my mother’s cheek. It must have
reverberated going by the impetus in my father’s arm.
His biceps was on the high at that point. The calabash
fell off her grip and got smashed. Father pinned her to
the wall and Bode came after me too. He sent a strong
bite to my right side. I couldn’t raise my arm. I dare not
do that.
When they were done with us after dealing with us like
thieves, father locked us up in the room. I was left in
the dark as regard their conversation. Mother could
have begun the explanation, but our hands were both
tied with ropes. They had even removed the bulb in that
room so as to leave us in total darkness. There was
weeping and gnashing of teeth in the belly of the dark.
It was hell!