Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 2

4 years ago

Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 2

Many persons filled the hospital, in contrast to the few cars parked at the small square. The nurses perambulated in blue, their dangling, tiny caps almost falling off their heads. Richard headed to the receptionist’s counter alongside a friend and colleague, Jide Echem, who muffled something of how unequipped the hospital looked.

“It was the nearest hospital,” Richard said to Jide.

“She should be transferred. That is not too much for a woman who took your perfume.”
“Stole,” Richard corrected, and refused pondering on Jide’s words. He tapped the receptionist’s desk, sidetracking her from her writing, and asked to see the woman brought in the previous day.
“What woman? Who brought her here, you or him?” She fixed on Jide, a sureness in her voice that it was he who brought in the woman.

Richard snuck eyes to his friend. There was no resemblance for the receptionist to mistake them. No similarity had emerged. Jide was still that tall, ebony man, whose neck equalled Richard’s head.

“I did,” Richard said. “Fair injured lady. Check your list. I signed.”
“Check room twelve.” The receptionist said without checking her list and demonstrated with her fingers the way to room twelve.
They strode to the first bend and were lucky not to stop any of the perambulating nurses as “12” was carved on a door.
Richard knocked and opened.
The fair lady lay on the bed, connected to a half-empty drip. She appeared thinner in the blue gown, or it could be the bed being too wide. A nurse stood at a corner busy with some syringes and cotton wools on a tray.
“How is the treatment?” Richard asked.
“No complications,” the nurse said. “She lost some blood, but thanks to the surrounding persons, the situation was salvaged on time.”

Her optimistic words were good to the ears. Even a thief deserved to live.
“Any internal injuries?” Jide asked.
“No. The car probably didn’t hit her with much speed. Her fall on sharp objects caused the major wounds. We found bottle fragments in her skin. The road must have had lots of them.”
Bottles? Richard thought. His perfume had caused that. “When will she be discharged?” He stared at the bed and tried to elude that pity that tried crawling into him. Next time, the woman wouldn’t steal, and even if she didn’t learn her lesson and decide to steal from another man, she would be careful not to run like a masquerade.
“The doctor will say that.”

The victim’s eyes partially opened. Richard drew nearer to her bed. “You remember me?” he asked with a lowered voice.
She stared at him, and the stare lasted without a word emerging from her lips, without anything but her piercing eyes pointing to him as though it was he who smashed her with a car.
“Maybe she doesn’t,” Jide said. “She might not have seen much of you.”
“I remember you,” she muttered without moving lips. “The man who caused my accident.”
She said it as a truth she had no doubt about, as though she saw him run his car through her. The nurse was looking at him with a cornered eye.

“You were hit by a car, which isn’t mine. The driver sped off.”
“You should not talk to her,” the nurse said.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She continued staring and coughed, coughed again and the cough was her response.
“It’s Ivie Oboh,” the nurse helped.
“I’m Richard Fayemi, and I did not cause your accident.”

She closed eyes, and they remained closed with no hope of opening. The nurse, holding a moist towel, sat by her and massaged her neck. A necklace hung at her neck, a pendant necklace of St. Vincent de Paul, one that only parishioners wore. Hard to say, but she might be a Christian, a Catholic, and… a parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul. Of all the parishes, why same parish with him?
“We should leave,” he told Jide.
Jide ducked his head out of the door and they left the room.
At the car, Jide brought up topics about the woman and the nonsensical federal hospital, as he called it. Richard did not talk much, but spared the nods for his friend. Talking would not make him enjoy the less bumpy highway drive.
Lander Close was silent. It always was, except at nights when the crickets disturbed. The gateman opened before any honk and Richard sped in.
Ezinne was stretched on the long sofa, viewing the screen. It’s Wednesday, so it should be The Nigerian Idols.
“Mr Echem, nnộ,” she greeted Jide in Igbo. Jide smiled at her, his usual faint smile.
“You’re early today,” she told Richard.
“I left work early. Jide and I went to the hospital to check on that young woman.”
“I still don’t understand why you would want to help a thief.”

“Believe me, if you were there, you’d have done same. I don’t know why she did what she did but she is of same parish with us. You can’t give a blind eye to your parish member. Of what patronage is Vincent de Paul?”

She looked at Jide, the type of look an Igbo man gives to his fellow Igbo. Jide made no remark.