We Are Able

Episode 43

I kept on begging for alms, all because I needed to see my
mother alive as Toyosi promised. John returned home healthy
after one month. The family had been rendered penniless by
the emergence of those sicknesses which happened to them in
turn. Now I feared that it was going to be my turn. If it
happened to me, I was sure no one would show any iota of
concern. Didn’t they want me dead earlier? I thought.

Toyosi and John depended on me to have them fed. They
would collect the money I made from my begging business
each day and use it to get food for the family. Toyosi had
written a letter to her husband abroad, but she hadn’t received
a reply yet.
I confronted Toyosi again to release my mother or else I would
kill myself with a knife. I was only trying to threaten her,
because I was their only hope of sustenance at the moment,
since none of Toyosi or John my father would be able to beg
alms as I was doing.

When Toyosi heard that, she put her hand on my head and
rubbed it in a passionate way as she wept.
“Rose, I have already put everything in place for your mother’s
release,” she said in tears. “She will be here very soon.”
“I don’t accept that,” I replied her in an unconvinced manner.

“Take me to her if you can’t bring her to me!” I signed in a
vigorous manner. “I must see my mummy, or else…”

Toyosi held me tight to herself. I wriggled in her grip. I was
already fed up with her unnecessary show of concern to me,
knowing quite well that she was just an impostor. I submitted
in the end and watched her drinking her tears like a cup of garri.
la!de and Biodun were on holiday. I was happy I would be able
to see Biodun now, since he would no more be going to
school. When I went to their apartment, it was Taiba who met
me at the door and waved me off. She didn’t want me near
Biodun at all; perhaps she was following the instruction of her
mistress.

I wrote a letter in Braille and went back to their apartment.
When Taiba came to the door, I gave her the letter, but she
took it and shredded it to pieces. Taiba didn’t want anything to
endanger her job and I understood vividly, but I couldn’t
contain the feeling I was having towards Biodun anymore. We
haven’t seen each other for the past three months, yet we lived
in the same house.

Toyosi suddenly held her stomach and groaned in pain. She
was rushed down to the hospital by her jobless illegitimate
husband. I wondered what was going on. It was her second
time she would be calling at a hospital within three months with
the same complication. I began to guess that her ailment had
something to do with the abortion she underwent some
months back. Maybe it had affected her womb somehow, I
thought, but since there was no one to give me an answer, I
forgot about it.

While John and Toyosi were in the hospital with Bode, I took a
day out to rest. I was going to keep it holy by not begging for
alms that day. It was a Friday morning. I had stepped out of
the apartment to take fresh air. I was looking towards Biodun’s
flat, wishing deep down my heart to see Biodun appear. How
would that happen when Taiba wouldn’t stop policing him
everywhere? I thought.
The violent breeze blew some dust into my eyes and I began to
blink to get the dust away. It took me sometimes to recover
from the pain. When I did, I saw Biodun standing close. I was
surprised..

Biodun touched me with his walking stick as he made his way
to our door. I smiled. I went close to him and touched his
nape. He knew at once that I was the one. Who would touch
the back of his neck that way except me?
Biodun smiled.
I led Biodun in. He made a sign to me—my own language,

something I had taught him a little of.
“Let us flee together,” Biodun had signed. When he asked me in
Braille to teach him that statement in sign language in the eatery
three months back, I didn’t know he was going to use it for
real. Now that was the exact statement he was demonstrating
to me with his hands.

It was amazing that he could come up with such suggestion. I
touched him at the back of his head. It was a sign we both
formulated together to mean ‘no’. Biodun’s face grew pale. He
was disappointed somehow. Soon he was shedding tears. He
did the sign again to say that we should flee. It was something I
had least expected, myself fleeing with Biodun to continue our
love affair somewhere else? Too funny to think about!

Biodun was serious about it. He began to weep. I clutched his
head in my hands, a way of pacifying him, but his tears didn’t
end. He asked for those Braille materials I had with me and I
provided them. Biodun began to punch the paper with it. He
was done with it after five minutes. I read:
Though I may not have seen it but I have heard it; when people
can’t get what they want, they kill themselves. When you see
me dead before tomorrow, then you should know why. Bye.

Biodun rose up. He took his walking stick and began to feel his
way out of the parlour. He lingered a little while at the door and
then went through it. I rushed towards him and stood on his
way.

I never wanted him dead, else I would die too. Somehow, his
soul had fused into mine. I was his sight and he was my voice.

There was no one at the moment I understood more than
Biodun, despite the fact that he was blind and couldn’t see me
do my signs and I was deaf and couldn’t hear him speak.
I touched Biodun’s forehead. It was our self-formulated sign to
mean agreement. Biodun didn’t believe it. He reached out for
my forehead, but his two fingers couldn’t get there because he
couldn’t see me. I knew what he wanted to ask, so I held his
arm and set the two fingers there myself. He was going to ask
if I was sure of what I had just communicated to him by my
‘touch sign’.

I touched his forehead with two fingers in return to tell him that
I was sure. If I was not serious about it, I would have touched
his forehead with just a finger and not two.
I rushed back inside to take my bag. I took the money I had in
a purse and set out. I held Biodun’s right wrist as we began to
hurry towards the gate. I opened the gate carefully so that
Taiba who should be inside their apartment wouldn’t hear its
sound. In no time at all, we were out of the house. All we
needed to do at first was to get onto a motorcycle to take us to
somewhere far from home. I waved down one and Biodun
spoke with the rider. They didn’t agree at a price, so he left.

Another soon came close and we mounted on that.

The rider didn’t move. Instead, he turned his head backward
and it was a shock to us. When Biodun tapped him to ask why
he wasn’t moving, he told Biodun something which I didn’t
hear. Biodun tapped me and pointed backward. He was asking
me to look behind me since I was his eyes. I looked behind me
and saw horror! Taiba! She had probably been shouting and
waving at the bikeman to get his attention earlier. Biodun must
have heard her shouting and didn’t know she was the one.

Our plan was shattered. Now we had to beg Taiba not to tell
Biodun’s mother what had happened. Taiba didn’t accept it until
she got some money from us and pulled our ears, warning us
that we shouldn’t dare try such a thing in our life. Biodun
actually sneaked out of their apartment while she was having
her bath.