Such As Should Be Saved
By juliettemyers
- 516 reads
Lagos, 1980
David, the houseboy, opened the gates of the family home to let the girls in after school.
'Good afternoon, my sistas,' David's face shone.
'Hi there David,' Helen raised a sun-lazy hand in greeting.
The girls stepped in through the glass crested walls and the heavy iron bolts on the gates sang like whales as they returned to their casings. The yard had been picked clean of weeds and leaves.
'You have been very seriously busy-oh,' said Lillian, raising a hand to high-five David. 'Very seriously,' Lillian pretended to be stern.
'Yes-oh!' David clicked his bare heels together and saluted with a shy smile.
The girls laughed and Helen went ahead and crossed the driveway, jumping up the stone steps and on to the verandah. Lillian trailed behind her to fuss over Ben, their golden retriever – she threw a ball for him over the yard. David went back to the shade of the flowerbed, settling down with his knees pulled up and his back to the wall, a stalk of cogon grass in his mouth.
'Hi girls,' Mother waved at them from the thick shade of the scrambling sea heart vines in the garden behind the house. She had a glass of Nene's fresh lemonade by her side and was browsing a woman's weekly. 'Good day?' she called.
'Yes mom!' the girls replied together.
Father was not there. He was probably in town somewhere, at work, in a prayer meeting. A lay preacher, the only clue to his rare presence in the house was the leather-bound Bible that he left on the table by the front door when he retreated to his study. Every time he came home, the girls ran to tell their Mother he had arrived and she placed her hands on their heads and smiled. She never talked about his absences, never complained or passed comment, and so neither did they.
Helen went from the verandah straight upstairs and into the bedroom she shared with Lillian. She quickly slid her school uniform to the floor and changed into her weekend clothes – a pair of dungarees and an old t-shirt. Their windows crawled with sea salt and opened wide onto the lagoon. At night-time, Helen liked to lie on her stomach and see the view through the netted window-frames, listening to Lillian reciting her prayers in quiet, careful rhythms.
The glass doors that led from the landing to the balcony had been opened to allow the breeze from the bay to circulate through the stillness of the house. Helen went to the cupboard on the landing and pulled open the doors with both hands, inhaling the familiar draught of damp bricks and lining paper as she reached in and pulled out her Father's telescope and tripod. Father was very particular about how he kept his things, taking great care to ensure that anything he bought was well-looked after: cameras and compasses put back in their cases, the telescope sheathed in an old roll of green baize. Helen found him fusty and old fashioned. On Sundays the family had to sit in the front row of the Shining Light Church and Helen twitched as the starched cotton of her dress pressed into her skin. Father preached with both hands pressed down hard either side of the pulpit. His face poured with sweat and yet he remained buttoned up in suit and tie and not until he reached home did he loosen his garments and lay them down carefully over the chair for Nene to fold and hang and tidy away.
Helen carried the telescope out to the balcony, where she set it up and experimented with the focus and range before settling on making a study of the immediate surroundings: the mighty grey-blue lagoon, the track leading away from the house and down to the surfaced road, the grand houses of the new elites that nestled in the low green hills and the skyline punched with newly-built high-rise blocks. Victoria Island was full of people just like them, living at arm's reach from the ragged mainland. Their parents saw to it that they never needed to go there.
'What can you see?' Lillian had come upstairs and shouted to Helen as she too got changed in the bedroom. A whiff of fruit skins decaying in the sun drifted up on the breeze.
'I'm looking for the Russian cargo ships. The Daily Nation says they're spying on the oil platforms, running pipes under the sea to the black marketeers.'
'Oh Hels, don't be silly,' said Lillian, 'it's all just gossip. Father says the Nation's news isn't worth the paper it's printed on.'
Helen carried on looking down the telescope.
'Here,' Lillian placed a glass of the fresh lemonade on the floor by Helen's feet, 'I'm going to walk the dog. You coming?'
Lillian had changed into an old white blouse and a yellow skirt. Round her neck she wore a delicate gold crucifix which she put to her lips as she stood behind her sister. Helen had never shared Lillian's fondness for god. Much more enticing for Helen were the sciences, the real and physical world out there.
'Thanks Lill, but no. I'm staying put.'
'OK,' Lillian said and skipped off down the stairs and back into the yard.
Lillian was green eyed and aquiline, light skinned, the bridge of her nose and cheekbones scattered with tiny freckles. She had been blessed with the best of her Mother's American genes and good looks. Helen didn't mind it, she loved the way that everyone smiled at her little sister, Lill – when she looked, she drew people to her. Even in church, the congregation turned around as she walked up the aisle. Helen, on the other hand, was less admired – she was darker skinned, carrying her Father's crushed nose and heavy limbs. But her Mother smoothed her cheeks with the backs of her fingers and made Helen feel that what was inside mattered most. She never envied or resented Lillian.
'Walkies, walkies?' Lillian was talking to Ben down on the yard. She was mad about him.
Helen looked at Lillian and Ben down the telescope. Through the lens, she could see close-up the gunk that had gathered at the corner of Ben's dark marbly eyes and the trails of slobber he left along Lill's sugar cane arms. Ben ducked and played and tried to lick Lillian's cheeks and mouth. She pushed him gently away and disappeared along the narrow gap between the carport and the wall.
Helen scanned the horizon of the lagoon – there were sand boats and trawlers, dugouts and a colossal raft of timber floating up from the forests of the Delta. And then, close by, on the broken glass crown of the compound wall, was a rainbow lizard, frozen but for its belly inflating and deflating like sails in the wind.
Helen swung the telescope downwards again as soon as she heard the tap of Lillian's footsteps on the driveway below. She was going to track her, like a spy or a sniper. She regained her focus. Lillian had retrieved a length of rope from the garage, one end of which she was now looping into a lead for the dog. Mother called out from the garden.
'Remember what your Father said, Lillian,' she said, as Lill tugged the dog to its feet, 'no further than the junction.'
David jumped up and waved Lillian out through the gates. Helen followed her sister's progress along the track, past the gated row of houses that overlooked the bay. The road declined steadily over the one hundred metres or so before it met the surfaced road on the junction where the palms and an exotic stand of silver birch grew. The trees were small and weak-looking next to the moringas and lianas, but they were different, reminding Helen of foreign places.
Lillian's shoulder blade jutted through the white cotton back of her blouse as she pulled and tried to keep control of Ben. He jumped and skitted and jerked on the lead. For a moment, he sat down in the dust and offered Lillian his paw. Two guards watched them from beneath the hibiscus outside number twelve and lowered their eyes to the ground, grinning like choirboys at this girl and her dog.
The mouth of one of the guards moved as he called out to Lillian from the shade of the bush. A second passed and the words came to Helen on the air.
'You get beautiful dog for pet, Miss L, yes-oh!'
Ben strained hard on the lead, eager to get to the surfaced road. Lillian smiled back at the guards and waved with her free hand. Helen found that if she held still and looked carefully, she could see the gleam of light sweat that had appeared on Lillian's top lip as she struggled and was pulled down the road. Her blouse had started to gather and stick to the small of her back with the effort.
Helen drew back from the telescope for a moment and pulled out a stick of gum that she had kept in her pocket from the weekend. She unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth, folding over the stick with her tongue. One of the guards had stepped out onto the track to look down the road after Lillian, his shoulders shrugging lightly with laughter.
'Miss Helen?' Nene's voice called up the stairs.
Helen turned away from the balcony to see Nene wiping her hands and then her brow on a tea towel, breathless from the short climb to the landing.
'Yes Nene?'
'Make sure you done-finish before your Father get back. He no get smile for face if he sees you with that magnifier, all out for play anyhow.'
'Yes Nene.'
'This astromony nah serious business-oh.'
Nene pointed at Helen as she spoke.
'Yes, Nene.'
'OK, OK, remember now,' Nene shuffled off downstairs.
Helen smiled and returned to the view, refocusing on the track and locating Lillian just before she dropped suddenly away from view and a pall of dust rose up in the air. There was a muffled yell and, panning down to the ground, Helen saw that Lillian had fallen flat on her face. Helen chuckled – Lill wasn't hurt. Her hands reached blindly forwards as Ben took advantage and made off down the track. Fragments of stone and gravel had gathered at Lillian's elbows and indented the soft underside of her forearms.
She scrambled to her feet and chased after Ben as he ran rings around her and darted back and forth. Helen could see by her face that Lillian was laughing as she waved her arms in the air, calling the dog back to her and running along. She stopped to bend down, smacking the palms of her hands on her thighs and calling out to Ben. Thick strings of drool wiggled like eels from Ben's mouth as he ran back and and forth. Lillian tried to grab hold of the rope that trailed from his neck, but he turned tail once more and Lillian had to sprint after him. Lillian was a good runner – fastest time in the girls' one hundred metres twice in a row in First and Second Form. She was shouting now, Helen could tell, though she couldn't make out the words.
'Go on Lill,' said Helen, 'go on!' But her sister just couldn't catch up with the dog.
Ben was already across the main road beyond the junction when Lillian was hit by the cab that travelled fast from the direction of Riverside. Her body hurled bird-high in the air, as if caught on the wind and the yellow taxi span like a coin in the road. Lillian plummeted into the boot of the cab and tumbled hard onto the back windscreen. Helen couldn't see Lillian's face as her body smashed on to the ground, it all happened so fast - she couldn't keep up.
When the cab came to a halt, the dog bounded over and barked into it's radiator. Lill was motionless on the road, her right arm twisted, her legs scissored grotesquely in front of her, her blouse torn open to the waist. Her head was bent out of sight.
Helen froze and held her breath; she could not lift her gaze from the telescope. As long as she kept looking down it, it would not be real, what she had seen would not be true. Her ears filled up with the booming drum of her blood.
Two passers-by had stopped still in their tracks to stare at Lillian as she lay on the road. They made perfect O's with their mouths and eyes as they looked to one another and then down at her. Helen stared down the lens at them: they didn't do anything, they just stood there and stared, like her.
Ben wagged his tail and padded forward to Lillian, licking and sniffing at her face that Helen couldn't see.
Helen exhaled and pulled back slowly. Her stomach cramped. People had emerged from the houses and were gathering on the track. There seemed to be quiet among them as she stared at their slow, doubtful shaking of heads.
'No, no, no,' said Helen softly to herself. 'No, no, no.' She felt very hot, caught in the spokes of the sun, air closing around her.
She blinked and straightened herself up.
With trembling hands, Helen made short work of dismantling the telescope and putting it back in it's place in the cupboard on the landing. She had to do this, make sure that everything was returned in good order, without panic.
Helen shut the cupboard doors and crossed the landing to the stairs. She grasped the handrail and descended, looking straight ahead as she entered the garden and walked purposefully to where her Mother dozed in the shade.
David sprinted up behind her and almost knocked her off her feet before she had a chance to open her mouth to speak to her Mother.
'Auntie, quickly, I beg - there's been a terrible accident-oh. Very terrible.'
His eyes were iridescent.
Mother sprang up from the lounger.
'What? What's happened?'
'Come, now. It is Lillian. Quickly, Auntie, quickly.'
David said these last words surely, but quietly, and turned on his heel to run to the gate. He looked over his shoulder to where Helen stood in the garden and beckoned her on urgently.
Nene sent David for a private ambulance and Helen stood holding her hand on the junction, her stomach still tight, her mouth mute. Their Mother knelt down in the road and cradled Lillian's body in her lap. She looked silently upon her daughter's face, where the blood that flowed from her mouth had already begun to dry. A long go-slow had built up and a crowd had arrived. Ben would not leave Lillian's side, his head bowed, his tail thumping on the road.
The house guards from number twelve did their best to keep the crowd at bay, but there was jostling and pushing and people wanted to catch a glimpse of the girl and the way that they said her limbs had twisted and turned like the devil himself had spun around her arms and her legs.
The driver was only thirteen years old, a woman in the crowd said.
'Look at him with his baby-fat cheeks. Not a day over his coming-of-age!'
This boy from Ajegunle was pinned to the bonnet of the cab, his face pressed into the hot metal by the guards.
'Those Mopo, they do take no notice of this pickin driver when there is too much fire for day,' said the woman and the crowd nodded their ascent. This dry season heat had slumped the Police and security forces, useless in their roadside shelters.
A passenger who had been travelling with the boy now crouched at the roadside and spoke up. He was shaken and angry. The boy's head had been barely visible above the steering wheel, he said, like a ghost had possessed the cab. Men and women in the crowd cupped the man's shoulder.
'Cool temper,' they said.
The boy had picked some passengers and ferried them across the VI Bridge and they had paid their share fare. He could reach the pedals with his feet and made a steadier passage along the road than many a taxi driver, so they said nothing of his short stature. There were no holes in the body-work and the chassis seemed solid. The passenger held out his hand to entreat understanding and the crowd murmured 'Hmnnn.'
At the hospital, the doctors talked quietly to Father, who had arrived from across town. They all sat in the pale shock of the family room. Helen did not let go of Nene's hand as she stared at the baby toy on the table in front of her. Rubber soles squeaked on the lino of the corridor outside. Their Father discussed matters with the medics and stray words met their ears: impact, spinal injury, lacerations, brain trauma. Mother hugged her arms in closer and closer to her body and would not look up. Father's face showed uncommonly grave concern.
Lillian was laid out in the dining room the following day after her body was released from the mortuary. Helen watched from the balcony as a silver hearse with etched and mirrored windows arrived and a stretcher was pulled from the trunk. On it was a large black sac, zipped up the front like a soft suit case.
'No, no, no,' said Helen.
Lill was inside there.
The long mahogany table was removed to make way for her bed which was carried down from upstairs by David and the young men who had been called to assist. The bed was made up with the best linen of the house. Mother would not allow Nene to help as she smoothed the sheets with the flats of her hands and tucked the quilting over her daughter's body. Helen hoped to feel sweat as she touched her fingertips to Lillian's forehead, but she felt only coldness, like rubber boots or chicken thighs.
In the kitchen Nene prepared vats of jollof rice and egusi stew to go with Lillian's favourite dodo. Visitors started arriving at dusk. Helen circulated the room in her Sunday dress, handing out ground nuts, biscuits and zobo, as people muttered about losing control, the absurd and terrible tragedy of it. She nodded at them but could not find any words in her mouth to speak. There was a heavy lead taste on her tongue that would not go away and it weighted the silence within her.
Father sat on a chair in the corner wearing his suit and receiving the visitors as one by one they filed past, clasped hands and embraced. Helen waited for Lillian to open her eyes, watching her throughout the night and staying close by, so that when she did come to, her sister's smiling face would be near. But Lill's eyes never opened. Her face remained still.
Later that evening, Uncle arrived from Port Harcourt with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and the women took up their seats in the adjoining room. They prayed very hard together and sang quiet hymns in Ijaw.
Just before midnight, the drummers came and gathered in the garden and the women changed out of their crimplene and cotton and wrapped their hips with the cloth that had been sent for. It was printed with an oval of Lillian's school photograph face from the beginning of term. Beneath her picture were the words, 'Such As Should Be Saved – Lillian Elizabeth Ukpabio,' and the dates 1967-1980.
The women bent double and danced round and round, twirling white handkerchiefs in the air as they moved through the kerosene light of the garden. Nene served yam chips to the mourners who stood at the edge of the grass as fireflies skipped over their feet. To the front of the property, young men from the neighbouring compounds had gathered to smoke cigarettes and listen to Fela. The scattering sound of 'Sorrow, Tears and Blood' was playing on the transistor from the verandah's stone steps.
Helen felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. Tears had gathered along her Father's jawbone and he turned her away, silently steering her to the front door. The night guards drew back the heavy iron bolts and opened the gates to allow a pick-up truck to enter. The young driver of the cab from Ajegunle cowered in the flat-bed of the truck surrounded by Area Boys. A bottle of Squadron Rum was passed round in the yard and the young men took a few sharp drags on their cigarettes before they crushed their butts in the dirt.
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