Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

A hard thought forced Ifi to her haunches. She gasped with the weight of it. He could have died. Lies and all, criminals could have killed Job, and then there would have been no one. To be alone in this place, of all places. Without friends, sef. Without her own people, only Gladys and Emeka, Chai! For the first time, Ifi imagined the years that Job had spent alone in America. His odd mannerisms — the way he adjusted his glasses simply by jerking the features of his face; the grinding of his teeth; his cleanliness, even as they lived in such a sty — all suddenly had a source of explanation. Looking around the room, she mused, Anyone could become silly in such a place, alone.

She couldn’t stay there, she determined. Not in such a place, where food was left to rot in the refrigerator overnight; where neighbors were thieves; where there was no one, no friends, neighbors, or family to ask after her. Still, how humiliating it would have been to return to Aunty and Uncle, a widow, with nothing but the suitcases she had left with months earlier. Who would marry such a woman? Ifi decided that she must speak the truth to them. She began a letter to Aunty.

Dear Aunty,

I have truth to tell you. It has all been a lie. We do not live in a mansion. We live like rats. Worse than rats. In a shack, surrounded by gangsters, akatta. They have attacked Job, stolen his car. He is no doctor. I married a pretender. I am afraid here.

After signing the letter, Ifi sealed it and rummaged through the kitchen drawers until she found a stamp. She stamped the letter and pulled on her boots.

Just steps from the front door, the weight in her body suddenly dropped. So swift was the movement that it took all of Ifi’s effort to remain standing. Stirring the air as it dropped, the letter fell away to the scuffed floors. Ifi reached for the telephone. Balanced on the kitchen countertop, near the emptied pot, it was beyond her reach. Pain pulsed through her back and thighs. Can it be happening now? So early. Too early. I haven’t even spilled water. A strangled whimper reverberated, a peculiar gasp and moan that Ifi had never heard before. The voice belonged to her. She tried to shape the sound into words. Nothing but a damp moan escaped her body, like that of a grunting dog.

In a hapless countermelody, the phone rang out, filling the room and punctuating each of her moans. Pain pounded through Ifi’s body, and her eyes began to flicker. She hefted her weight to one side and struggled to rise. A few more pushes between each burst of pain, and she would be on her two feet. Her eyes flickered and she groaned.

A heavy thud forced the door forward, and then a second, and then a third. Under the weight of each thrust, the room rattled and hissed in protest. Ifi’s whimpers turned to small cries. Is it happening? Have they come to beat me? Had she willed this to happen to her with her unforgiving thoughts of Job? As she lay on the floor bracing for the attack, Ifi imagined another scenario: Job all alone in this country, once again. Perhaps he would go on as if they had never met. Perhaps he would start over with a new wife. Unlike Ifi, his new wife would be beautiful and young, and she would trust in him completely, like a good wife.

A strong urge, something like jealousy, growled inside of her. Ifi dragged her weight with her forearms. Slowly, gradually, her body began to slide across the floor, away from the noise of her attackers.

Wood along the door’s frame splintered, and the door thrust open. Jamal. For a moment, he stood in the doorway, glaring at Ifi. A wild look took over his face. Daring him to attack her, as he had attacked her husband, Ifi growled rabidly.

Jamal took the room in three steps, but he didn’t come near her.

There’s nothing to take, she had the urge to tell him, but the anger, fear, and pain were all coming from one place, and they forced their way through her back, her belly, and her legs. I will have this baby, oh, she thought to herself, on this floor, with this teenage boy as witness.

“The phone, lady, the phone,” he said to her.

Will he take it and throw it away? But the pain was too terrible. All Ifi could feel was her hand, obeying his command with a motion to the countertop.

He placed the call.

“My aunty’s at work,” he said.

He’ll call 9-1-1, she thought in relief. Giving in to the pain, she began to calm. Soon she would be in a hospital bed, and the baby would be out of her.

He disappeared. When he reappeared, he was holding the blanket from the bed and a towel from the bathroom, the very towel that was still stained with Job’s blood from the night of the attack. Jamal swaddled the blankets around her, and she felt as if she was drowning under the weight of the sheets. Sweat rinsed down the sides of her face before she realized that she was hot and thirsty. She fought to pull the sheets apart from her body. In answer, he brought her a cup of warm tap water in a dirty cup. Seeing the pieces floating in the cup, she hesitated.

“Drink it,” he said.

Another contraction rattled through her body. She obeyed.

They were still, the two, for fifteen minutes or more. Ifi couldn’t be sure. Then suddenly, she was gazing up at another tall brown boy who stood in the doorway, another boy like Jamal, but without his softness; older, at least sixteen or seventeen. Ifi tensed. What can they want with a pregnant woman in labor? But then, as she wheezed, struggling to breathe, she reminded herself, This is America. Anything was possible. Maybe Mrs. Janik had called the police. For once, Ifi prayed that the old woman would put her gossip to good use.

“Oh shit,” the older boy said. “What the fuck? She having a baby.”

“Yeah,” Jamal said.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“We need your car,” he said.

“No way, man,” the older boy said, but his eyes never left Ifi.

“You want me to call 9-1-1?” Jamal asked. “You want them to have police come here and pick the lady up while we here?”

The boy backed into the doorway. “Naw, man. You wouldn’t.”

“We just go and drop her off at the hospital. They won’t even see us. If we don’t, we’ll be in deep shit. Something could happen to her and the baby.”

“No way, man,” the boy said again.

“Yeah, we gonna use your car,” Jamal said with an urgency tinged with anger. Though he was smaller, he thrust the taller boy into the broken door. Another large splinter sounded as the door bumped the back wall.

“Fuck you, man,” the boy said. “I ain’t part of this.”

“Naw, you are,” Jamal said back, and as their eyes met, it was suddenly clear to Ifi that she was face to face with yet another of Job’s attackers. It filled her with rage. “Give me your keys,” Jamal said. Another quick shake to his partner, but the boy wouldn’t budge.

The other boy shook his head furiously. “Naw, fuck you. You on your own.” And just like that, he shoved Jamal one time, just hard enough for him to sprawl on the floor next to Ifi, and he disappeared out the door in a crash of footsteps.

Jamal swung his gaze in all directions. For the first time, he looked frightened. “I can’t call the police,” he said, more to himself than to Ifi. He picked up the phone. He began to dial some numbers and then hung up.

“Call my husband,” Ifi said. Her voice was strangled and low, but the words produced sounds.

“No way,” Jamal said. “No way.”

“Call Mrs. Janik,” Ifi said.

“Who?”

“The old lady.”

He made as if he would do just that. Then he stopped in the doorway and returned to Ifi, where she was writhing beneath the sheets. “I can call my aunty at work. She’ll pick you up. Mrs. Janik is crazy. Everybody knows that.”