Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

Mrs. Janik blinked. “He’s trying to make you forget about his mistress. He thinks this is all it takes. Like you’re some cheap prostitute he can purchase and take back when he’s through.” She worked herself up into her own rage.

“I’m fine,” Ifi said. A path of muddy track marks led from the doorway into the room, from the deliverymen. She wetted a rag and started to wipe at the stains.

Mrs. Janik sat back on the couch. With much effort, she lifted her two legs onto the center table, pushed the magazines aside, and picked one up. It was the interior design magazine that Ifi had taken from her apartment. Ifi felt a sudden chill.

Mrs. Janik thumbed through the magazine, settling on the well-worn pages like Ifi had. Ifi had memorized the pictures by now: the all-white living room on page twenty-five, with the shiny black contemporary furniture, the Chinese tapestries draped along the walls, and the Berber rugs on the gleaming hardwood floors. Ifi had already begun to compose a new letter for Aunty, describing the texture of the rug in precise detail. Now, she felt cold and ashamed, like a common beggar. But it wasn’t stealing. “My dear,” she said in her calmest voice, “thank you for dashing me your magazine. You see, I planned to bring it back to you tonight.”

Mrs. Janik didn’t seem to hear her explanation. “So what happened to you that night?” Then she answered her own question. “Listen, you got nothing to be afraid of. We’re in this together. I won’t let nothing happen to you.”

Ifi put the rag down. “It was a mistake,” she said. Wasn’t it? Surely she had jumped to conclusions. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to present Job with the letter. In fact, the letter was once again in her pocket.

“Do you still have it?” Mrs. Janik asked.

“What?”

“The letter of course!”

“No, I threw it away.”

But it was not true. The letter had driven with Ifi and Job to the hospital. It had been in her pocket when Gladys’s little girl had taken her hand. And it had also been there as she gently rocked the girl in her lap until her sobs subsided. It had even been there when the baby in Ifi’s stomach had begun to kick for the first time. Although she knew immediately what it was, it had felt like a rumble inside her belly. She hadn’t expected it to feel like that. Ifi had taken the little girl’s small palm in her hand and pressed it into her belly. The little girl had looked at her with dark eyes and said, “My brother did that too.”

Ifi pulled her closer and kissed her forehead then, thinking of the colorless body in the incubator. Emeka and Gladys had agreed with the nurses that the girls ought to have a chance to say good-bye to their little brother. And then, while everyone had waited outside, their angry raised voices had argued that they had done it all wrong, and the girls should never have seen the dead baby. But Ifi had silently disagreed. Had she seen her mother and later her father when they passed away, it might have made more sense that they were never coming back. Perhaps her nights wouldn’t have been filled with silly fantasies. Ifi had kissed the little girl’s fingertips and pressed them to the lump on her lip. She had told the little girl that her baby brother was in heaven with Jesus. Since that time, Ifi hadn’t been able to think about anything but protecting the baby inside her. It astounded her that she could feel such love for someone she had never met. She thought of Job.

Mrs. Janik flipped through the pages of the magazine so quickly that she ripped one of them. “Don’t you even wonder what the woman looks like? Aren’t you even a little curious?”

Ifi scrubbed harder at the spot on the floor.

Mrs. Janik had the rag in her hand before Ifi realized it. She glared into Ifi’s face. “If I were you, I wouldn’t take this lightly. You think this is the last you’ve seen of this prostitute? Well, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. Do you understand? That prostitute is coming back. And if I were you, I’d want to be on the offensive.” She dropped the rag in front of Ifi, straightened up, and headed for the door, letting it slam behind her.

Ifi shook her head. What an ugly woman. Useless, just like Job had said. No husband, no children, no family, sef. There was a sister somewhere, but Ifi had never seen her, probably because she didn’t want the woman’s bad luck to spoil her. Ifi shivered at the thought of the cat smell in Mrs. Janik’s apartment and the dusty porcelain figurines all along the walls, like a mausoleum of animal corpses. Again, Ifi thought of the lifeless baby boy in the incubator.

She rinsed out the rag in the sink and spread it to dry. Balancing her hand at the base of her back where the weight of her belly seemed to rest, she struggled to squeeze through the small space between the center table and the couch. Ifi rearranged the items in the living room, shifting the plants on top of the television and stacking Job’s boxes on the floor in an orderly arrangement. Wobbling lines greeted her when she turned on the television. Ifi glared into the screen, trying to piece the warped images together into one.

And then she felt the baby kick again. A yell rose in the back of her throat. Job, wrapped in a towel, rushed in, dripping and warm from his shower.

“He’s kicking.” Ifi guided Job’s hand to her belly.

He could only murmur again and again, “Je-sus Christ. Je-sus Christ.”

They both realized that the shower was still running, and he rushed back to turn it off. It was then, with Ifi low on the couch, straightening the items on the floor, that she stumbled on the plastic yellow bag from the electronics store. Receipts were stapled together in a cluster. Her eyes widened at the number of nines behind the dollar sign. But she pushed it back into the bag. There, she found half of a torn business card, one half that read: Sheryl.

ONCE MRS. JANIK WAS SEATED NEXT TO HER IN THE TAXI, IFI REACHED into her handbag and set the interior design magazine on the slope between them. Mrs. Janik didn’t even look at it. Instead she pulled the shaggy brim of her snow hat so that it rested just above her eyebrows. “Let me see it here again,” she said. She meant the business card, but Ifi pushed the magazine into her lap anyway. It stayed there unopened and untouched for the remainder of the drive, and when they made it to their destination, Mrs. Janik left it behind.

They stood before a large empty lot backed by a line of squat storefronts; the one on the end was hers, Beacon Boutique, a shabby affair. Most of the stenciled letters on the façade had begun to fade and crack. Dead cigarettes were scattered along the pavement. Ifi thought it must be a mistake; the driver said it was not. To prove himself, he pushed the torn halves of the business card together. The numbers on the building matched. He didn’t bother to ask them what they were doing there, a pregnant African woman and an old white lady. And this — and this alone — was what frightened Ifi the most. With little more than a cluck, he dropped them off and drove away, taking the crumpled bills from Mrs. Janik. The abandoned magazine shrunk the farther the cab drove away.

To come to this place had been Mrs. Janik’s idea, although, to be honest, Ifi had helped in forming it. After she had seen the business card, Ifi had pounded on Mrs. Janik’s door. She was right. She had been right all along. They had a problem. She needed to be a woman and take care of it. And it had only taken that for Mrs. Janik to insist that the prostitute had gone just too far, buying the peace offering with her man.

Now the two stood outside the dark, empty building, their hands frozen in their pockets, uncertain of their next move. Nearby a stooped streetlight illuminated a row of bus stop benches with a dull orange glow. Spread across the lot, there were two abandoned cars, newer models, big, boxy cars. But it was such a desolate scene that Ifi couldn’t imagine the cars having ever belonged to anyone. It was nearly seven, so early that the sky was nothing more than a dark strip shrouded by pale fluff. Job would be home soon, and, Ifi supposed, in their haste, they hadn’t exactly come up with a plan; they hadn’t figured out how it would be done, or, for that matter, what would be done.