Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

And snow fell outside, a dressed-up rain.

THE TROUBLE BEGAN WITH A LETTER.

Every night since the day of Ifi’s arrival, Job Ogbonnaya dressed in his white lab coat and black slacks and tucked his stethoscope into his pocket. In his other pocket, he took the mail. He sipped coffee from a Thermos and carried an empty briefcase to the door, the way he imagined a doctor would. He kissed Ifi good-night and from his car watched as the lights flickered off inside the apartment. Just like the night of Ifi’s arrival, a block before he reached the St. Ignatius Rehabilitation Hospital, Job turned into a parking lot abandoned to the night. Under the cover of darkness, he changed out of his lab coat and slacks and carefully folded each into a plastic grocery bag that he placed underneath the seat. Then he changed into pale blue scrubs and pinned himself with the nametag that read, Job Ogbonnaya, Certified Nursing Assistant.

As he made his rounds that night, he told his patients the familiar story: he came from kings. It meant more to them than if he were to explain the truth: that his father was a chief and his father before him. Job told them he came from kings as he crouched to bathe them over the pot, to empty their bedpans, to wipe the caked spittle from around their mouths, to re-dress their wounds — the work that shamed him. Patients young and old listened to his stories: the little girl who lay in a coma for nine months, the woman with gums so bloodied and swollen she could only hum, the old man who forgot that he must remove his pants before relieving himself.

Job was there now, kneeling before the old man. All the nurses and patients on the hall called the old man Captain. Long ago, he was a lawyer or an investment banker, something important like that. Perhaps, once, he was surrounded by important legal briefs and framed plaques on the walls. Today, a soiled heap of clothes lay on the tiled floor between them. “I come from kings,” Job was saying to him. “And I am a prince.”

He waited for a reaction, an exclamation, something, but Captain said nothing.

Job set him on the toilet seat. He placed Captain’s palms on each thigh, a reminder that the old man must remain sitting as he relieved himself. Captain scratched his head. Already his business was done, but Job had to make him remember. Captain’s eyes roamed the room, locked on the door. He began to rise.

“Hakeem Olajuwon, you know him,” Job said, hurriedly. Captain stopped and listened. “I used to play basketball with him.” Each time Job told the man the story, he listened as if hearing it for the first time.

“You don’t say?” he said.

“Oh yes, it’s true.”

“You mean that basketball player, the one from Africa, the one who played with Michael Jordan?”

“Yes, that’s the one. He is from Nigeria, you know, like me,” Job said.

“Ni-ger-i-a. That’s in Africa,” Captain said.

“Oh yes, Olajuwon went to primary school with me.”

“Primary school.”

“Olajuwon was skinny, with legs as tall as a giraffe’s. But he was not always so good. I taught him to play. Every day, I explained to him the fundamentals of basketball,” Job said. “I taught him how to slam dunk and shoot a free throw from his ankles.”

Job helped Captain off the toilet and wiped him. Like the first time, it brought him shame. He thought of his father. What disgrace his father would feel watching his “doctor” son at this. He looked away, but his eyes couldn’t escape the reflection in the mirror: the old man kneeling forward, his thin, sandy legs covered in sparse gray hairs, his withered testicles shamelessly dangling before him, and Job bent before the man like a beggar.

“I explained everything he knows to him,” Job said quietly.

“Doctor,” Captain said.

“Yes?” He told him he was an African prince from an ancient empire. He told him he was a friend of Olajuwon. But each time he returned to this room, the one thing Captain remembered was that Job was a doctor. Of all his patients, Captain was the only one who called him Doctor, and for this Job believed they shared a secret kinship. He set a palm on the old man’s shoulder, kindly.

“Did you marry that African queen?”

“Yes.” Job beamed.

“Good. Tell me about her. What’s her name?”

“Gladys.” Job frowned, flustered. He corrected himself. “Ifi, I mean.”

“Well, which is it?”

“Ifi,” Job said. “My wife is Ifi. She is beautiful, tall, classical, a nurse. She is the woman I have made queen of my kingdom.” A mistake; nothing behind it. Still, best to be careful not to repeat such an error in front of Ifi or — dare he think it — Emeka. Admittedly, Job had felt something for Gladys, but that was long ago, he told himself. He was a mere boy then. Anything he felt now, a twinge here, a flurry there, was a bit of nostalgia and indigestion. He had grown old. Now he was a man, and a man was a decider. He had thumbed through the photographs and settled on Ifi’s picture, deciding on a future they would eventually share in America. He had chosen her. He hadn’t run around after Ifi like Emeka had for Gladys, sweating and stumbling over himself. He hadn’t deceived Ifi into loving him — not exactly. He had told Ifi he must care for patients each night. He just hadn’t clarified that he was here as their nurse, not their doctor.

Half truths were of no consequence; he would become a doctor one day, and they would open a clinic together. Only not today. Job faced Captain, glaring into his heavy-lidded eyes. “She will make a fine mother. We are expecting our first child.”

“Oh, I don’t like children.”

“I don’t like them either,” Job admitted. “But it’s time. Some men have had six children by now, sef,” he said, thinking of Emeka. “Me, I have none. And what is a man without children to carry forward his name?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “We’re not getting any younger.”

“But we’re getting prettier.” Job laughed at his joke. “You know, it was my junior brother who sat for the wedding in my place, so I could be here with my patients.” It must have confused Captain. Job wondered how to explain the way the arrangement happened, how he told his relatives that he couldn’t get away from the hospital, when it was really that he couldn’t possibly afford to miss so many shifts; how his junior brother took his place in the traditional ceremony; how they had agreed that once everything was settled, once Ifi came to America, he would marry her in a church and send the family photographs. There was the civil ceremony in Port Harcourt on the day of the honeymoon, but the church wedding in America hadn’t happened after all. It would be far too expensive and extravagant. But his family would never know.

There were staged photographs instead, taken at the studio where Emeka took his family for photos on the day of Ifi’s arrival. Job had rented a tuxedo, and Ifi had worn a lacy white dress that Job found at a thrift store. In the photograph, she stared into the camera, hard, fierce, but beautiful, a bouquet of flowers hiding her protruding belly, a picture his family now hung with pride in their parlor. None of the small details matter, Job reminded himself. What mattered was that he had done something that made his father proud. “In a few months’ time,” he said to Captain, “my father will receive the photos of my first son.”

“Well, that’s kind of you. You’re kind. My son doesn’t take care of me, but you take care of your father,” he said. “Just like a good son should.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve written him letters, and the boy still won’t reply.”

“That’s terrible.” Job helped him back into his slacks and slippers.