Nothing Now Remains: A Novel

By Ernest O. Izedonmwen

Osaru returns to Nigeria after a near disastrous sojourn to America, determined to salvage some damaged relationships and a clean break from others. He soon discovers that his past is steadfastly interwoven with his present and future. “Nothing Now Remains” is a compelling narrative of how Osaru reconciles and finds his place within a complex family life and the evolving social, economic, and political reality he inhabits as a returnee.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669835073

Ernest O. Izedonmwen

Ernest Osaretin Izedonmwen is an attorney. He works and teaches in Dallas, Texas. He obtained his first degree in law from the University of Ife, Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University), and graduate law degrees from the University of Benin, Nigeria; McGill University, Montreal, Canada; and Texas A&M Law School, USA. He is married to Adesuwa, and they have four children. He is a fellow of the International Center for Ocean Development, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He loves traveling, swimming, reading, and reciting poems. He is the author of the best-selling novel A Walk in the Rain, several legal articles, and seminal presentations.

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Copyright © 2022 by Ernest O. Izedonmwen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/20/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Epilogue

To the memory of my parents,

Robert Irorere Izedonmwen

and

Maria Iserienrien Izedonmwen.

Disclaimer

This is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person (living or dead), character, or event except names of countries and cities is purely coincidental. Also, the author has taken the liberty to recontextualize some historic events, especially about time and characters.

Cover Design

Concept: Ernest O. Izedonmwen

Graphics: Alex Uyi Izedonmwen and Linda Ayeola

Acknowledgments

Sequels come with an inbuilt structural disadvantage because, like twins, they are forever compared with their forerunner or counterpart. This sequel to my first novel, A Walk in the Rain, was inevitable because its forerunner ended with some deliberate ambiguities. For all those whose questions were unanswered by A Walk in the Rain, Nothing Now Remains will perhaps fill some, if not all, of those gaps, but do not hold me to that promise.

I still find writing an acknowledgment intractably difficult because of the unrestrained vastness of the subject. In the array of people, places, events, inanimate objects, and things that have crossed my life, which of these deserve a mention here, and which to eliminate without being an ingrate? But as a wise man once said, gratitude is the least inarticulate of emotions, especially when genuinely felt. Thus, my profound gratitude to many people who, but for the constraint of time and space, deserve to be mentioned here.

My eternal gratitude to my family—my wife, Adesuwa (Mama Lin), and children, Lexley Osasere (Red), Alex Uyi (Baba), Naomi Esosa (Mama Dodoo), and Jeffrey Nosa (Jefito). Thanks for everything.

To my following friends for your unflinching support: Stephen Kelechi (Agwoturumbe), Onyewuchi Endy Echefu, and Claire Chig Asogwa, who served as my unpaid consultants on Igbo culture and names; Loretta Mabinton (Mama EJ); ; John Oshodi; and Zino Magbegor.

Grateful acknowledgment to my friend and physician Dr. Oladele Olusanya, who graciously consented to the use of his trilogy, Gods and Heroes, as sources of Yoruba history.

A very special thank you to my niece and associate Atty. Osamudiamen Mudia Edosomwan and my special assistant Susan Taiwo Ogidiagba for turning my ineligible squiggles into a readable material.

Grateful acknowledgment to the blessed memory of the late professor Arthur Adeola Okunniga, who ended his inaugural lecture Transplants, Mongrels, and the Law with the title of this novel, and a special shout to all my 1983 Ife Law and 1984 NLS classmates.

Finally, how can I keep from singing Your praise? Thank You, Lord! And as they say in my other world, "The author rests."

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1

M ama Osaru blew the fading firewood with a makeshift, handheld fan made of folded newspapers. The flickering flames responded momentarily with a bright orange yawn and faded back to sleep. It had been raining nonstop for three days, and her cooking firewood pile took the brunt of it. She managed to salvage some barks and was coaxing it to burn with the fan, but her efforts were fruitless. She had not eaten a decent meal in two days and was desperate to cook vegetable soup for lunch. The rain remained unrelenting, and what used to be roads were now dirty, shallow ponds due to poor or no drainage at all. The sky was dark and ominous with promises of more bad weather.

This was one of the few occasions she missed the liquid gas stove. She owned a gas stove until two years ago, when her house help, Agnes, almost burned her house down. She remembered it well. She was in her stall at the ancient Agbado Market, where she sold rice in big bags, attending to customers, when Ojo, a neighborhood boy, ran to her frantically and nearly out of breath to announce that her house was on fire. With scanty details of the incident, she jumped on the back seat of a motorbike popularly called okada. The fact that she unhesitatingly rode an okada showed her desperation and the direness of the emergency.

Mama Osaru detested okadas and their operators. She disliked their manners or lack thereof and their dress, which she considered dirty and toutlike. Furthermore, she suspected that many of them were on something. Look at their almost closed reddish eyes, she would say when justifying her resistance to this form of transportation. She claimed that her objection was based on the riders’ invasion of her city like a swarm of locusts weaving in and out of traffic with complete disregard for traffic rules and the safety of others. In truth, who could blame her? The bikers were often accused of using their motorbikes for criminal activities, especially stealing and snatching valuables from unsuspecting pedestrians and fleeing away without a trace, beyond the outstretched hands of bewildered victims. She detested and dismissed them thus: Look at all the accident they cause.

Her friend Igunma, who was a frequent okada patron, would sigh and respond, But what can we do? There is no other public transportation here. Her daughter, Ivie, knew that the real reason her mother discouraged bike rides, especially by young women, was that she considered it inappropriate for a female to cling so tightly to a male not her husband. It was the source of many stern, disapproving looks and words whenever Ivie rode an okada.

This emergency overcame her contempt. As they sped near her house, she could see the huge billow of black smoke rising skyward, and she feared the worst, a total loss of her home and nearly all her earthly possessions. She arrived at her house to meet several people, many of whom were hawkers of various wares, but a sizable number of them were her neighbors, who were busy fighting the flames with everything at their disposal—cups, buckets, gallons, jars, containers, all filled with water. Some suggested soap water while others recommended wet blankets. With considerable efforts, they were able to contain and localize the fire to the kitchen. The kitchen was the last room in the building. Mama Osaru converted it to a kitchen after the last tenant left. The old kitchen was a makeshift wooden shack, and its architectural limitations were constantly exposed by the elements.

The fire was eventually put out, but the smell and smothering of the smoke remained for some time thereafter. It was only then she heard the story of how the fire started. Her house help, Agnes, was introduced to her a month before the incident. Mama Osaru had been seeking help ever since her last help announced that she was getting married and moving to Abuja with her husband. She gave only a two-day advance notice. Mama Osaru spread the word around the market and church that she needed help urgently. Two weeks later, Mama Emeka introduced her to Agnes, a girl from her village, Ngwaiyiekwe. It was the first time Agnes, a girl of sixteen, was venturing out of her village, and she wore her rural upbringing with gusto but was very efficient within her limited skill set.

The gas cooker was particularly challenging for her, and she tried to resist using it. She could not understand the strange box with blue flames. How could this woodless contraption ever cook anything properly? She missed the billowing orange-colored fireball that blackened every cooking pot in her village. The pots here remained white (she meant stainless steel) after cooking. So she had to adapt because that was what her madam or mama, as she called Mama Osaru, wanted. On this day, when she struck the phosphorous matchstick to light the stove, the last thing she heard was a loud explosion. When she came to, she was surrounded by a crowd and pain all over her body. Eventually, she was lifted into the back seat of a taxicab and taken to the Central Hospital on Sapele Road near the city center. Agnes, it turned out, had forgotten to shut off the gas tank when she cooked breakfast earlier, and the escaped gas filled the enclosed kitchen, which ignited when she struck the match.

With the communal efforts at putting out the fire nearly accomplished, someone in a moment of levity derisively suggested calling the fire department. It had the desired effect as everyone had a good laugh in an otherwise grim circumstance. The city’s fire departments, like the National Electric Department, were the butts of jokes and scorns because of their inefficiency. The city’s fire department occupied a decent multistory building in the city’s downtown close to the oba’s (king’s) palace. It usually parked three to four fire trucks in front of its building to serve a population of nearly two million people. Many in the community suspected that the trucks were window dressing. Even after the state government announced and broadcast with fanfare that it had acquired four new fire trucks, there were rumors that the trucks were retired and decommissioned from America. The politicians, government officials, and contractors collected the budgeted amount for new trucks but purchased used and unserviceable trucks for peanuts while pocketing the difference. Fortuitously, the department was exposed soon after the purchase announcements, when one of the new trucks, while racing toward a fire emergency, caught fire on Mission Road, about three miles from its station. The public gathered to watch helplessly as the truck completely burned down. Asked why they could not save their truck, the officers explained that the truck had no water and that they were hoping to get water from the house they were rushing to save. From that day, the fire department became a punch line for easy laughs in the city.

Agnes, who suffered third-degree burns, recovered soon enough with only minor visible lacerations and discoloration on her fingers, which were already showing signs of darkening, to blend with the rest of her skin color. Mama Osaru vowed to henceforth cook with firewood. It was with considerable effort that her daughter, Ivie, persuaded her after three months to give the kerosene cooker a chance. She argued that kerosene was less combustible than gas and was incapable of causing the kind of damage and harm that liquified natural gas could bring. Many of her tenants joined the chorus as they, too, used kerosene-powered cookers and never experienced any mishap.

Mama Osaru was initially adamant; she could not forget the panic that greeted her when she first learned of the fire. Where would she stay? Whom would she stay with? What of the two hundred thousand naira under her mattress? Osaru’s picture and school reports she kept in the wooden box in her bedroom? The jewelry she had been accumulating since her teenage years? What would her daughter inherit from her? No, she did not want to go through that sort of mental torture again. What if the house burned down the next time around? All her unrealized fears may then a become a reality. God forbid, she spat out while circling her right hand around her head and casting the imaginary evil away.

But she soon found out that firewood was increasingly harder to get than she remembered. In fact, not so long ago, all she needed to do was tell Micah, the wood distributor, that she needed supplies, and it was usually delivered by the time she got home in the evening, including sawdust, a by-product of sawmill operation, which is a highly combustible wood dust. Micah informed her that sawmills were running out of wood as forests were increasingly depleted because of illegal deforestation, especially of young timber trees, and the refusal for many years by operators to obey conservation rules, which required them to plant two trees upon felling one. The operators ignored this law, backed by corrupt forest rangers. The poor quality of wood and sometimes total lack of it finally persuaded Mama Osaru to give the kerosene stove a chance. But the union did not endure because, with constant reminders by Agnes, she concluded that her food smelled of kerosene. Ivie suspected that Agnes deliberately spiked her food with kerosene, but Mama Osaru would not hear it as she maintained that even the food she prepared solely on her own on Sundays, when Agnes was off duty, smelled and tasted of kerosene.

So, she was back to cooking with wood, to Agnes’s relief and joy. Mama Osaru continued to fan the wood in the hope that the flames would finally show some signs of life and boil her vegetables. Agnes was of no help. She was going through her menstrual cycle, which completely paralyzed her every month for two to three days with painful stomach cramps. It was only two in the afternoon, but it seemed like late evening because of the rain and dark skies. The streets that were usually boisterous with hawkers, honking vehicles, loud arguments, and chatters of children were unusually quiet, even though the rain had subsided for a while, and the streets were beginning to dry out.

Her fire eventually responded, and she made her vegetable soup. Agnes got out of bed with considerable effort and thanked Mama Osaru for the food. They both ate silently in the living room. The living room furniture was getting outdated; they were purchased immediately before Ivie’s wedding, and she could not believe how expensive they were. Ivie insisted because she did not want her husband’s people to think that she came from a poor family. You know how in-laws are. Anytime I complain about something, they will ask, ‘Do you have that in your father’s house? We saw where you came from.’ So, she spared no expense to refurnish the living room before her only daughter’s wedding, although she thought the colors were too bright. Ivie called her conservative and said that contemporary furnishing utilized bright and inviting colors. But that was five years ago. She did not like the soup because the vegetables tasted rough and not fully cooked, but Agnes swallowed her eba greedily while Mama Osaru ate hers with agidi.

Mama Osaru thought she heard her daughter’s voice, but that could not be; she was in Lagos with her husband, and she usually called her weeks or days in advance before coming to Benin. Even then, she came only on weekends, which they thoroughly enjoyed and looked forward to. They usually used such opportunities to update each other with the latest gossips about family, friends, church members, and neighbors. The two sad moments were when they inevitably discussed Osaru, whom they have not heard from in almost two years, and Ivie’s childlessness after nearly five years of marriage. She would, at such times, console Ivie, who would invariably break down and blame their enemies, who included her mother in-law, Bolanle, who opposed her marriage to her son, Olajide, from inception. After all, various doctors, after a battery of tests every year, always declared them healthy and that there was no scientific reason why they cannot have children. So, the cause of Ivie’s childlessness, they concluded, was solely spiritual and induced by wicked enemies.

Mama Osaru, at such juncture, would resolve to pray, fast, and pledge more to God, to be redeemed when Ivie bore a child. They would both kneel and hold hands. Jehovah-nissi, Mama Osaru would begin, the Alpha and Omega; the I Am That I Am; the Ancient of Days; the God of Meshack, Shedrack, and Abednego; the Father of the fatherless, who owns the day and night; the Creator of heaven and earth; You who said we should ask and You will grant our request, I come to You today in supplication and humility for my daughter, Ivie, to be fruitful. You know my heart. I have never wished other people’s children ill. Please do not let the evil wishes of others come true for my daughter, Ivie. Do not let me be disgraced and embarrassed through this child. Let me hear a baby’s cry in my daughter’s home. Let me see and carry Ivie’s child in my lifetime. Lord, what do I have that I can promise You that You do not already have or cannot get from others? Have mercy on me, Your humble servant, and my daughter not because we deserve it but because of Your infinite grace. She would usually go on and on until Ivie stopped crying and became restless due to pain from kneeling for a long time.

Ivie’s raspy voice interrupted Mama Osaru’s thoughts again. This time, it was nearer and unmistakable as she walked into the room with wet shoes and umbrella in hand. Mama Osaru’s heart skipped, but Ivie’s countenance did not portray any emergency, and before she could ask any question, a husky bearded man walked in, smiling with outstretched arms toward her, screaming, Mama! It was her son, Osarumwense, Osaru.

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2

T he digital flight map showed that they were in Ghana and about seventy-five minutes to their destination, Lagos, when Osaru woke up. He had flown from Dallas to Houston, where the connecting Continental Airlines flight would take him on a twelve-hour flight to Lagos. After bidding farewell to his daughter and Verma, he boarded the flight to Houston, which was short and uneventful. The flight from Houston to Lagos was in one of the newer and bigger Boeing jet planes. The interior was beautiful and aesthetically well put together. Each back seat had a television screen and earplugs. The first-class seats were minibedrooms, which Osaru learned cost several thousands of dollars.

Osaru sat in the very friendly first seat behind business-class seats tagged Economy Plus because it had extended leg room. The next seat to his right was occupied by a lady probably in her midsixties who informed him that she was going back home to Nigeria after visiting her daughter and her family in the USA. Unprompted, she volunteered that she was a widow with grown children and now traveled frequently at will. Next, she asked whether he was saved. From what? he asked.

Do you know Jesus?

Not personally, but I have read about Him in the past.

Have you accepted Him as your personal Lord and Savior? she pressed.

I will rather keep my religious beliefs and preferences private.

My brother, at the mention of His name, every knee shall bow. You must accept and confess with your lips that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and everything else will follow.’ She then handed him some tracts. I would like to minister further to you.

I am tired and need some sleep. Maybe later. Luckily, he ate dinner at the fish restaurant at the airport because he had no reason to expect that airline food quality had improved along with the industry’s technological advancements. He came prepared to sleep throughout the flight. He took a pill of ten-milligram melatonin and promptly fell asleep. He woke up in Ghana. The plane was dark and quiet. He used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and returned to his seat, careful not to disturb the sleep of the evangelical seatmate. He scanned the TV channels, but nothing caught his attention. So, he brought out the Nigeria Today community newspaper he picked up at the airport.

The newspaper contained mostly stale news, but it updated him on the post-presidential election bickering among politicians and political parties in Nigeria. It was at least comforting that, despite the postelection recriminations, there had been a peaceful transition of power to a new president, although the ruling party won the election by a razor-thin margin in very disputed circumstances. The outgoing president, a retired army general, dismissed allegations of electoral fraud with his characteristic bluntness; sore losers he called the opposition, who lost because the Nigerian people will not trust thieves with power. He looked through the center spread, which was a double page of pictures from various social events, including weddings, birthdays, and funerals. The annotated pictures were mostly smiling couples with the women in various complicated headgears, the men with handheld fans made of leather, or white fly swatches inscribed with the titles of their bearers. His countrymen’s affinity for prefixes and titles never ceased to amaze him. But one of the captions was particularly vain; it read, Ultimate High Chief, Sir, Dr. Somebody, and his wife, Lolo, Superhigh Chief Nurse, Lady Somebody. He shook his head in disgust and turned to the back page; he thought he recognized the girl in the picture. He looked closer. It was unmistakable; it was the picture of Egbe, his childhood friend, and his first love, Ese. He looked again at the picture of a very happy young couple. Ese was looking stunning in her pink slit dress just as he had imagined her.

An intense pain shot through his chest; he coughed. He had trouble breathing. He pushed the message button. The attendant rushed to his seat after someone screamed and began saying, I cover you with the blood of Jesus! and repeating, I reject the spirit of death! It was the evangelical lady. She woke up when Osaru slumped into her. She thought he was a lousy sleeper until she saw white foam gushing between his clenched teeth with unblinking eyelids, and she raised alarm. The intercom solicited help from any medical personnel on board.

Dr. Abu was returning to Nigeria for the second of his four annual medical missions in the country. He was an outstanding hematologist at the University of Lagos, until a few years ago, when he received a fellowship at Tulane University in Louisiana. It was supposed to last one year, but he secured a permanent position at the university’s medical research center before the year ran out and joined the legion of his countrymen fleeing harsh economic and political circumstances. The brain drain was real.

He rushed to Osaru’s seat. By now, other passengers were gathered around him until the voice on the intercom asked everyone to go to their seats. Dr. Abu laid him flat on his back and observed right away that the young man was having chest palpitations, which was caused by blood clot. Sitting still on long flights could cause blood to congeal and trigger blockage of the arteries. He wondered why the airlines did not educate their customers about the dangers of blood clot, a condition that could easily be avoided by motion as simple as standing or walking periodically on long flights. He ordered the patient to an isolated area at the front of the plane. He administered CPR and massaged the patient’s stiff fingers to relax them. He was coming to. The worse appeared to be over.

They touched down in Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed Airport, where an ambulance was waiting. Dr. Abu gave his preliminary assessment to the medical attendants and instructed the driver to rush the patient to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) without delay. The medical attendant informed Dr. Abu that immigration officers told him that the paperwork was not ready as there was a drug hold on the patient, placed by the drug enforcement agency. Dr. Abu was furious. He confronted the first available officer, who directed him to a superior officer. Ibrahim, the superior officer as stated on his name tag, explained that the federal drug agency had an alert from the United States’ drug enforcement agency that a convicted drug kingpin was on board the flight. He had no authority to release him. Dr. Abu needed to talk to the drug agency, but no one knew where to find an officer from that agency. Their phones were unanswered, and their offices locked. Dr. Abu screamed and yelled at the immigration officer that he had a dying patient, and if need be, he would personally drive the ambulance out of the airport. The immigration officers were adamant, and a shouting match ensued.

The crowd was gathering around as the stalemate continued, until a middle-aged man in sky-blue-colored caftan with a knitted cap tilted at the top to the left appeared. He introduced himself as the airport controller. Dr. Abu explained the urgency of the situation to him. One of the flight crew confirmed Dr. Abu’s account. The controller ordered the immediate release of the patient to the physician on the condition that an airport staff accompanied them to the hospital to get Osaru’s contact information.

Meanwhile, Osaru was now fully conscious. In fact, he believed he had not completely lost consciousness at any time. He was aware of the commotion around him inside the plane. He heard the screams, prayers, and exhortations of the evangelical lady, as well as a voice announcing that he was a doctor and taking charge. He seemed to exist outside his body and observing everyone and everything including his motionless body. He had read about astral projection but had always dismissed it as psycho nonsense. Now there seemed to be some validity to it. His fingers and toes were cold and limp. He saw the doctor push down his chest and place his mouth on his. Then he was put on what seemed like a bed as the plane took a steady descent; they had apparently landed and taxied for what seemed like an eternity. He must have fallen asleep because he woke up and observed that he was lying strapped down on a gurney. Then the warm air hit him with a bang along with the poignant, stale smell of sweat in a confined, limited, windowless space. Although his eyes were closed and facing the ceiling, he knew he was in Lagos.

He was awoken by a sudden, hard stop and the vehicle’s prolonged honking. He apparently was in an ambulance as the siren was blaring with flashing lights on top. Honking seemed to be part of driving a vehicle here. He was admitted to the hospital into a VIP suite as he later found out. It must have been late in the night because, when he woke up, it was morning. He tried to move, but his hands and legs were heavy as if anchored on bricks. There were two bags of drips with tubes connected through needle to his left arm. His fingers were still cold, but he felt sharp pains at their tips, which upon examination had tiny pricks on them from needle marks. The room was sparsely decorated with adjustable hospital bed, a table, and a desk chair. At the corner near the door was a hand-wash sink. The wall had a fading picture of a human body stripped of any covering skin. The room was clean but had a heavy antiseptic smell. He was fully mentally alert now, but his body was weak and his limbs unresponsive to any attempt at movement or motion.

He could not believe that he had reacted so badly to losing Ese. It was not losing her, he reasoned; it was the fact of losing her to Egbe of all people. That weasel, he swore. He could not bear the thought of Ese being with Egbe, the fact that they were married, that Ese was sleeping with Egbe perhaps at this moment, and that they seemed very happy in that abominable picture. Had they moved to America together? Was Ese now calling Egbe the pet name she used to call him, Pulky? And was Egbe now calling her Dreamy, his pet name for her because her eyes were perpetually threatening to close? Had she discussed their relationship with Egbe? Would she expose her beautifully sculptured body to Egbe after shower and walk out of the bath, use a towel, drop it, and then nonchalantly walk about naked while making up and slowly putting on her clothing? It was in those moments he admired her unmatched beauty more. He remembered the poetry and symmetry of her flawless anatomy and its treasures that he had successfully hidden from the world that Egbe, in one final act of perfidy, had stolen from him.

Did he have any right to complain though? Yes, it was unreasonable for him to expect Ese to remain single and wait for him, while he had moved on with his life, falling in love with one woman, Denine; marrying another, Yolanda; and having a baby with yet another woman, Verma. Worse still, he had not communicated with Ese in close to four years. No, he had no goodwill to draw on. She correctly moved on, but why Egbe of all people? How did that traitor, Egbe, a skunk of a human being, penetrate the well-guarded defenses of Ese to defile that virtuous goddess and marry her? He hurt more anytime the picture flashed through his mind. More disturbing to him was that they seemed very happy. Did she whisper that desperate, vulnerable, sonorous rhapsody into his ears too while weaving her fingers in spiral formation through his hair and ears during intercourse? Could he love her as much as he did? Did she really love him? Was their forbidden love borne out of mutual disgust for him?

He knew that Egbe had it in for him. All his attempts to reconcile with Egbe after they went their separate ways after he married Yolanda were rebuffed by Egbe. On one occasion, they met at a wedding of their common friend, Augustine. It was a classic Nigerian wedding with all the bells and whistles. Yolanda hated Nigerian gatherings because she said the Nigerian women were hostile to her, and she always seemed out of place because of their dress. The Nigerian women dressed in very colorful Nigerian outfits of various designs and prints, matched with even more elaborate headgears, which Yolanda called hats, but the Nigerian women called them gele. She admitted that most of the women looked good in them, but she hated hats because they messed with her hair, and in any case, she could not wrap and tie the gele as cleanly and neatly as the Nigerian women. On one occasion, she used office clips to hold her gele together, to the amusement and derision of the very spiteful Nigerian women. All in all, Yolanda considered Nigerian social gatherings hostile territory.

So Osaru attended Augustine’s wedding alone, or as they said in his Nigerian circle, he was flying solo. It was a standing-room-only ballroom because the hall with an approved capacity of five hundred was holding thrice that number; the fire marshal’s warning be damned. Truth was that invitations to Nigerian social functions, especially weddings, were perfunctory; anyone who showed up was welcome. On a few occasions when celebrants attempted to enforce strict admittance by invitation only, their attempts were overwhelmed and overcome by angry, uninvited guests, who easily breached the resistance and table assignments. In fact, the celebrants, usually children of first-generation Nigerian immigrants, were required to apologize for the disrespect shown to their well-wishers, who left their busy schedules to honor them.

On one occasion, the young Nigerian couple insisted that no alcohol or liquor of any kind be served at their wedding, which they boldly wrote at their invitation cards because they were born again. The good Nigerian guests showed up with their own alcohol and liquor, and when confronted about the alcohol or liquor prohibition, the already inebriated guests reminded the couple that they were at a wedding reception and not a Pentecostal revival. Some celebrants also wasted ink by printing adults only or no children on their cards. Needless to say that the admonitions were honored more in breach as children regularly ran around the reception hall unattended.

At Augustine’s wedding, he stood in line for a drink. The man in front of the lady ahead of him looked like Egbe. When he spoke, Osaru confirmed it was indeed Egbe and approached him enthusiastically, but Egbe was cold and distant. He said a casual hello with a frown but kept his hands in his pocket, leaving Osaru’s hand hanging in the air. The onlookers caught the awkward moment, and an embarrassed and bitter Osaru sheepishly retreated. He was miserable throughout the reception and left abruptly. So, he expected no favors from Egbe, but for him to snatch Ese just when he was ready to return as a prodigal lover, to seek her forgiveness, and to worship at her forgotten altar was too much for him to bear. He was sweating around his neck again, and he quickly pushed the help button. The nurse came in, checked his temperature, and injected him with a green liquid in a syringe. Now he felt the sting of the needle and wondered why he had not felt them before now.

It was Friday. Ivie planned to close early from work, as was her wont, to do her grocery shopping. On Fridays, Muslims civil servants were permitted to leave the office at midday for jum‘ah service. Ivie, a civil servant at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Internal Revenue Department, like most of her colleagues claimed to be Muslim on Fridays. Shopping on Friday enabled her to cook and clean on Saturdays and attend church and rest on Sundays. She and her husband, Olajide, did not require much cooking; they ate out a lot, especially on weekends until her mother-in-law, Bolanle, moved in with them after her husband (Daudu) died, and she fell and broke her leg. As soon as Bolanle recovered enough to move around with a walking stick, she harassed Ivie and her son about eating out, blaming it on the lazy man he married who could not even produce a child. How could a woman who goes to bars ever conceive a child? she asked. If such a woman bore a child, will such a child not die of hunger?

Are you going to take the child to the bar too? she would ask incredulously. Olajide would not hear it; he enjoyed eating out, a habit he developed while in graduate school at Ohio State University. Ivie was also initially resistant to eating out frequently because of cost, but she soon adapted and looked forward to the newest eatery in Lagos, especially when they were now sprouting out like spring mushrooms daily.

To please her mother-in-law and deescalate the tension at her home, she forced her husband to cut back on dining out and eat more at home. She was a very good cook, learning under the expert tutelage of her mother, who insisted from her infancy that she must participate and watch her cook. Initially, she was giving simple tasks like mashing seeds or needling flour; later, she could cut vegetables and okra. By the time she finished elementary school, the training wheels were off, and she could prepare complicated meals like egusi, bitter leaf, or banga soups. On her own later in high school and college, she learned through magazines, television, and YouTube to bake many confectionaries and other exotic diets.

She had just left the market and sat at the owner’s corner seat (back seat behind the front passenger seat) while her driver, Jibowu, was shutting the trunk of her Toyota Corolla, a gift from her husband two years earlier, when her phone rang. It was a strange number. She decided to ignore it. These were pranksters who used to be called 419s but were now more commonly referred to as yahoo boys after the internet service provider because they mostly perpetrated their crimes online. The same number rang again, and she answered with a skeptical hello. It was a female, who introduced herself as Nurse Yewande from LUTH. Do you have a brother called Osarumwense or Osaru?

Yes, she answered. Osaru came on the phone. Ivie was paralyzed with fear and anxiety. His voice was measured and reassuring. He was at the hospital in Lagos but would be discharged in the morning. It was a minor accident in the plane on his way to Nigeria. He meant it as a surprise visit. She was on her way to the hospital, she told him, and asked for details of his location. The nurse provided the requested information.

It was Osaru’s third day at the hospital. He woke up that day and felt like his old self. The sharp pain on the right side of his chest was gone, and he could move about unaided without effort. However, whenever he thought about Ese and Egbe, a sharp pain shot through his chest, but it no longer paralyzed or disabled him as before. He practiced the coping mechanism his attending physician, Professor Balogun, taught him, which was to lie down or stay still and take at least five deep breaths and exhale slowly. Professor Balogun had diagnosed him with panic attacks, and tests showed that he had a mild cardiac arrest, but there were no scarred tissues on his heart or chest walls. He prescribed some anxiety and sleeping medications. He advised follow-up visits in a week, but he was ready to be discharged the next day, which was a Saturday.

On the second day at the hospital, a drug enforcement agent showed up at the bedside of a heavily sedated Osaru to ask questions, but Professor Balogun promptly intervened and demanded that the officer leave and come back when Osaru was medically cleared and able to understand and answer his questions. The airline was very helpful; they delivered his three suitcases to his hospital room, and he was astonished upon examination a few days later that all his items were intact, with a note that the bags were searched and cleared by the Nigerian customs. On Friday morning, the same drug enforcement officer showed up again. After checking his passport, he began to question Osaru on his drug conviction in America and his accomplices in Nigeria, if any. Fortunately, Osaru had a copy of the appeal judgment exonerating him and showed it to the officer. He explained the circumstances of his arrest, conviction, and prison sentence. He also showed him a dossier compiled by his lawyer, Brandon, on Mr. Washington’s connections with Mr. T, which were not available at the time of trial. The officer took his contact information and made copies of the documents with a promise to be in touch if necessary.

Ivie ran into the hospital room; Osaru was waiting and looking through the glass window with his back to the door. What will she look like now? The nurse knocked and came in with Ivie. Osaru turned; she was as he remembered her, a brow of worry on her face, which disappeared as soon as she hugged him. She held so tightly to him; he felt she was going to squeeze the life out of him. When he looked closer, she was now a woman, with more flesh showing on her cheeks and arms. She was crying softly while he patted her on the back. They stood still, unmoved, for a long time without uttering any words, but the nonverbal communication was intense until the nurse asked him what he wanted for dinner. This nurse, Yewande, had been very kind and affectionate to him. It was she who informed him that the hospital food was worse than cardboard paper and that she knew a nearby Chinese restaurant that Americanas liked and frequently visited.

Ivie had so many questions, but she bid her time; at least her brother was alive. She was soon joined by her husband, Olajide. They stayed with Osaru and ate dinner of Chinese food together. He liked the Chinese rice and sauce but thought that the beef and chicken were rather tough while the sauce had a sharp edge to it. They talked about everything, except the very issues Ivie wanted to seek answers to. Why was Osaru in Nigeria suddenly and unannounced? Was it true he was sentenced to life imprisonment for dealing drugs? But there is a time and place for everything. For now, her brother was alive; and even though in a hospital room, he looked very healthy and handsome and had filled out a bit more, complete with very well-trimmed and manicured facial beard.

Osaru was ready to leave the hospital. His room was sterile. The only window view revealed other sets of concrete and glass buildings. When he ventured downstairs the previous day and walked into the courtyard, the air was refreshing. It had rained earlier that morning, and although the dry ground had greedily drunk the considerable rainwater, the air was still moist and the grass wet. The courtyard had well-manicured lawns with bougainvillea planted in rows about fifteen meters apart on both sides of the road. The fresh and distinct petrichor and wet grass invigorated him. He had not realized how much he missed open spaces with green vegetation. In the past three years while in prison, he had become accustomed to concrete slabs, iron fences, and gates.

The wet grass reminded him of his youthful soccer days when playing in the rain was so much fun and adventure with constant falls due to the slippery, wet grass and missing the ball trapped in ponds of water. He instinctively bent down, cut a piece of wet grass, and smelled it. He filled his lungs with the cold, moist air and felt so relaxed and invigorated that tiny droplet of tears dripped down his cheeks. He did not wipe it off but just reveled in the moment. It dawned on him that in the last few years of his sojourn to America, he had never had this feeling of absolute calm, free of worries about the unknown. At that moment, with so much calm, relief, and internal joy, any lingering doubts he may have entertained about his decision not to challenge his deportation or removal from the USA dissipated. He was home; he was going to plant his flag here, come sun, rain, or high waters. Now he only had to perfect his reentry plan. It was not going to be easy, he told himself, just like astronauts pass through a circle of fire while reentering Earth from space. His small fortune and investment in the United States, if he was prudent, would cushion the rough edges. Meanwhile, it was time to see his dear mother.

How would she look now? Was she healthy? Would she forgive him for not been in regular touch with her? How about his friend Emeka, who was now a lawyer? How was he doing? Would he know about Egbe and Ese? After seeing his mother, he must find Emeka through his mother, Mama Emeka; he was the only one who could answer his questions about the despicable Egbe. It surprised him that he was not as angry with Ese as he was with Egbe. He was beginning to sweat in the cold air. He began his calming exercise by inhaling and exhaling the cold air. He must learn not to allow Egbe build up bile in his body. But he must find out the facts of the relationship between Egbe and Ese.

He walked outside the front gate to the street, where a huge square with a concrete sign prominently displayed the name of the hospital and logo with the admittedly humble words We cure. God heals. The street was as boisterous, noisy, and chaotic as he remembered it, with many vehicles, some the latest foreign models, while others were from the distant past with obvious questions about their roadworthiness, but they were all united by their sharp horns, which appeared to be a requirement for successful driving here.

At the opposite end of the road was an open-air market that catered to the needs of the hospital community. Many of the shoppers were either patients who could move around unaided or their relatives and visitors. It was a booming market with a variety of wares on display. Because of poor financing or bad management, equipment and medications were either nonexistent or in short supply at the hospital. There were allegations that even the limited supplies available to the hospital were stolen by officials and sold to traders across the street for resale to patients at higher prices. He was mildly surprised to see many fruit stalls with a variety of fruits he had taken to in America. He purchased some apples at a price he considered exorbitant. He would learn later that his now corrupted accent gave him away as an Americana or a JJC, Johnny just come, with dollars, and therefore, his purchase price was calculated in a foreign currency different from that of locals.

Ivie and her husband, Olajide, lived in one of the affluent suburbs sprouting all over Lagos and Ikeja. Olajide told him his area was known as Allen. Allen Avenue was the commercial hub of the suburb. It boasted of banks and restaurants but most especially fashion stores, which were nearly all named boutiques with fanciful short names. The boutiques catered to the vanity of the young and hip crowd, to whom price was the exclusive indicia of quality. The merchants knew this and penalized their clientele with prohibitive prices for all types of imported fashion by the best-known designers from Europe and America. Street hawkers provided cheaper counterfeit alternatives.

All he wanted to do was rest for a day or two and proceed to Benin to see his mother and begin the implementation of his reintegration plan into the Nigerian society. He slept most of the time, which he attributed to the sedatives administered to him at the hospital. In the few moments he was awake, he switched on the TV to watch CNN, which was gradually becoming a global phenomenon. So it was that he stayed with Ivie for a week, not two days as originally planned before proceeding to Benin. Ivie and Olajide joined the conspiracy of silence to keep his mother out of the loop about his homecoming. Ivie called his mother in the morning before they left Lagos and talked about everything except Osaru and especially about the weather and how disruptive it had been. Osaru’s mother complained that she had not been able to cook. Ivie enjoined her to return to her kerosene stove. In fact, their flight was cancelled the previous day; hence, they embarked on a four-hour trip to Benin by road.

They left Lagos before dawn to beat the anticipated traffic caused by the Redeemed Convention on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. The Redeemed Church had grown from a few churches in the early seventies to a megachurch worldwide. Its annual convention at Redeemed City situated along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was attended by several thousands of devotees, which inevitably caused impossible traffic throughout the one-week convention.

The drive to Benin from Lagos was relaxing, interrupted occasionally by potholes and long stretches of washed-out asphalt. The rain also made visibility relatively poor, but the dense green vegetation on both sides of the road made for a very scenic and pleasant trip, which was serendipitous for him.