A token From Grandpa...Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Ato parked the van in front of the Maternity Department of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, crossed the street and walked through the Out-patients Department towards the Surgical Ward where Kwesi had been admitted.  He felt somewhat relieved to have been able to comfort Nana Ajoa to some extent.  What a way to begin a week, he thought.  He was having a hard time finding a job.  His daughter had been abducted.  His brother was close to becoming an amputee.  He thought through his clouds, seeking a faint glimmer of a silver lining.  There had still not been any information from Baaba’s abductors and it made him feel very frustrated.  Although he didn’t have the money to pay ransom, he wished it had been demanded so at least he could know what was needed to bring his daughter back. 

A nurse came out of the ward and he dashed after her.

            “Excuse me, nurse,” he said as the nurse briefly glanced over her shoulder and inclined her head to listen without breaking her stride.   “Please, how is Kwesi Quansah doing?  The man with the damaged wrist…”

            “He’s still unconscious.  He just came back from surgery.  He can’t have any visitors for a while.  He needs rest.”

As he descended the stairs, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face.  A woman talking to a nurse in front of the OPD looked vaguely familiar.  He was sure he had seen the face before but he couldn’t remember where.  He turned again to look at her.  She was walking away from the nurse.  She also turned.  Their eyes met..  She started walking faster away from him.  Then he remembered.  Emelia.  That’s what she had said her name was.  He wanted to talk to her.  He wanted to know what had really happened that night.  Kwesi had not been able to say much.  He had just kept saying that it wasn’t Emelia’s fault.  Ato himself suspected it was an accident because of the dead mouse that had been lying beside Kwesi.  He thought it may have been a freak accident from an attempt to kill the mouse.  He wanted to reach out to her in order to reassure her he didn’t suspect her of foul play.

            “Emelia?”  He called gently as he broke into a jog to catch up with her.  But she took to her heels.  That angered him a bit.  He continued running after her.

Behind the Medical School Hostel was a footpath that led to Mamprobi, one of Accra’s many suburbs.  For those acquainted with the area, it was a very harmless footpath although the bush around it made it look like a fertile ground for muggers, robbers and other dangerous elements.

It was this footpath that Emelia decided to take.  When she realized Ato was narrowing the distance between them, she jumped off the path and hid behind the foliage.  Ato was searching among the bushes for her when he heard a rustle of leaves behind him.  He turned sharply, expecting to see Emelia.  Instead, he saw an old lady defecating nonchalantly among the bushes.

            “Help!  Rape!”  The old lady shouted, pausing from her busy encounter with nature.  Ato ran all the way back to the van without as much as a single glance over his shoulder.  The old lady gave a thumbs up and winked at a grateful Emelia.

As she made her way out of the bushes, Emelia wondered whether Ato thought she had deliberately cut Kwesi’s wrist.  She wondered what he thought her motive was.  She also wondered what Ato would have done if he had gotten hold of her.  She wanted to let him know what had really happened.  She wanted him to understand that it was an accident and that she had nothing against Kwesi.  In fact, she had gone to the hospital to find Kwesi and apologize to him.  She had expected to meet Ato at the hospital but not under the conditions under which they had just met.  She feared he might want to hand her over to the Police and she dreaded the Police.

She picked her way carefully back to the Surgical Ward, making sure Kwesi’s van was no longer parked where she had seen it earlier.  She peeked into every room on every floor until she got to the sixth floor.  She had been told that Kwesi would be in the Male Surgical Ward but she didn’t know the exact room.  She decided to hang around until one of the nurses came by.  She leaned on the parapet to observe the scenery down below.  It was sunny and beautiful; a time for fun, not a good time to be stressed about the possibility of being held for manslaughter.  She had heard numerous times that slashing the wrist can lead to death.  The prospect of being considered a murderer did not particularly appeal to her.  She so desperately wanted Kwesi to be alright.  If there was anything she could do to ensure that he did not die, she was willing to do it no matter how difficult.

She was surprised by a gentle tap on her shoulder.  She turned sharply, frightened, expecting to see Ato.

            “Please, may I help you?”  The nurse asked as Emelia let out a deep sigh of relief.  The nurse looked vaguely familiar but Emelia was not sure about where she knew her

            “I’m here to see my boyfriend,” she lied.  “I’ve forgotten his number.”

            “What’s his name?”

            “Kwesi.”

            “Is that his last name or first name?”

            “I’m not really sure.  I guess we haven’t been together long enough.”  Emelia said, trying to hide her embarrassment in a comic giggle.  The nurse looked at her intently.

            “What is your name?  You look and sound familiar.  Have you lived in Accra all your life?”  The nurse asked

            “I was born and raised in the Volta Region.  I only moved to Accra when I finished school.”

            “Ah-ha!  Your name is Emelia, right?”  Emelia nodded.

            “And you are Gladys.  I knew it!  I recognized you immediately.  I just wasn’t sure.  You haven’t changed at all.  Aw, I’m so happy for you.  You became a nurse.”  The two women hugged briefly.

            “What about you?  What do you do?”  Emelia hesitated but Gladys was curious because Emelia had done much better than she had when they were in school.  She expected Emelia’s fortunes to also be much better than hers.

            “Okay,” Gladys said when the silence was becoming awkward.  “So, this friend of yours, what is he having surgery for?”

            “He had a freak accident.  He nearly lost his wrist, I hear.”

            “I think I know who you’re talking about.  Let’s check the second floor,” Gladys said as she led the way down the stairs.

There was something about Emelia that Gladys did not understand.  She remembered how Emelia had been the darling of the whole school, combining awesome looks with an insatiable desire to excel in class.  She had never been the best in class but she had always been in the top fifteen out of a class of forty-three students.  The remarkable thing about her was that she actually worked hard, both at home and at school.  Her mother, Mama Aku, was always selling something so Emelia hawked bread, bananas, biscuits and sweets after school.  But she always had her homework with her even as she walked the length and breadth of the town, trying to help her family survive life below the poverty line.

Gladys and Emelia had not really been friends although they were in the same class.  Emelia hardly had friends, anyway.  She was either too busy raking in some money for her family or trying to improve her chances of getting into a good secondary school.  She hardly attended social functions in the school and, even when she did, she either had a book to read or something to sell.  And, in those days, she dressed neatly but boringly.

Emelia’s hair was cut very short.  She wore large earrings and her beautiful nose had a ring in it.  Her brown button-down shirt, which was tied at the back, barely covered her nipples and exposed her navel, which also had a ring.  Her lime green skirt was very short, making her long legs seem even longer.  Her high-heeled boots matched her blouse.  She looks hot on a hot day, Gladys thought.  Very unlike Emelia.  But, ten years is a long time.  Long enough to change a person.

As they descended the stairs, Gladys hoped that the Kwesi Emelia was referring to was not the tro-tro driver who had been brought in the night before.  She thought it would break Emelia’s heart to hear that the guy had been with a prostitute.  If indeed he was the one, did Emelia know all the details about the freak accident? Gladys did not work on the second floor but the news about the guy whose hand was nearly severed by a prostitute had traveled very quickly around the block.  Even some of the patients had heard and joked about it.  But somewhere deep within her, Gladys was also hoping that if she had to introduce Emelia to her friends, she wouldn’t have to explain how her former mate at school happened to be dating a tro-tro driver.

Kwesi was sleeping when they got to him.  The nurse in charge explained that he was still under sedation and that he had lost a great deal of blood.  Gladys took Emelia back to her office on the sixth floor after encouraging her to leave Kwesi a note.  They sat in silence for several minutes. 

            “Do you know how he got injured?”  Gladys asked, unable to hold it any longer.

            “I do,” Emelia answered quietly.  “I did it.”

            “Were you jealous of the prostitute?”

            “There was no prostitute,” Emelia said hesitantly.  “His brother likes to call me a prostitute.  He doesn’t like me.”

            “Why doesn’t he like you?”

            “I don’t know why.”

Gladys left Emelia in her office and went into the ward to do her rounds.  Having spent most of her time in Accra dealing with people who judged her, her lifestyle and what she did for a living, Emelia kept wondering whether to tell Gladys the whole truth.  She did not blame those who judged her.  She sided with them.  She desperately wanted to be the Emelia she was before she came to Accra.  She hadn’t given up on her dream of getting herself a good education.  She hadn’t given up on her dream to make her mother’s life better.  She knew where she wanted to go in life and knew she had what it would take to get there.  But, she found herself trapped in a situation where drawing sustenance from what she hated most about herself seemed inevitable.  She knew there were prostitutes who were proud of being prostitutes.  They set out to be prostitutes because that was what they had always dreamed of doing.  She would not like anybody to judge them either.  She just didn’t feel that she belonged in that profession and felt frustrated that it was difficult for her to get out of it.  She believed that she had a mission to make her mother proud of her and that being in a profession the society around her frowned upon was a sure way to hasten her mother’s journey to the land of the ancestors.  Maybe, if her challenges and circumstances had been different, she would have had no qualms about doing what she did for a living.

            “I hear your boyfriend needs blood,” Gladys said as she strolled back into her office.  “Can you help?”

            “I would like to but I’m scared.”

            “Of what?”

            “Suppose they tell me I have AIDS?”

            “O, come on.  It’s better for you to know if you have it.”

            “Look, Gladys, I ……  Anyway, I don’t even know my blood group.”

            “You don’t have to worry about that,” Gladys said as she prepared the apparatus to draw Emelia’s blood.  “We’ll find that out.  Will you do it?”

Emelia reluctantly lay on a bed and allowed her blood to be drawn.  Gladys rushed the sample to the lab, came back to do her rounds and then went back for the results.

            “You are not in the same blood group but they’ll exchange yours for some at the blood bank.”

            “Did they check it for AIDS?”

            “O, sorry, here’s the card.”

Gladys handed a small card to Emelia and went into the ward.  Emelia studied the card hesitantly.  When she saw the result she sighed deeply, held on to the edge of a table and sat down slowly.  The room began to spin.  She dropped the card on the floor and put her head on the table.  She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and lifted her head.

            “Why, what’s the matter with you?” Gladys asked as she saw the tears in Emelia’s eyes.

            “The report.  It said ‘negative’.”

            “Yes.  It means you don’t have it.”

            “I thought it was the opposite.”

            “O, please!  Don’t be funny,” Gladys said with a laugh.  “Now, will you tell me what happened?”

            “So, he really isn’t my boyfriend.  I know you will be surprised to hear this but I am really a prostitute.”  Emelia said as an introduction to her narration of the events that had brought Kwesi to the hospital.