Alhaji heard the shout first and rushed to where Soliat was and gripped her arm, keeping her on her feet.
"No." Tears rushed to her eyes. Baba looked calm, even though her vision was blurry and even though though there were patches of blood on his face. He looked too calm for the father she knew, his face too stoic for her to know if he had been in pain. He was tagged with a red ribbon and even though there wasn't, there was something about his calmness that told Soliat he was dead. She screamed again.
Alhaji covered her eyes. "Oh Solia." He brought her into his arms. He hadn't known the man was visiting, but he had not also known there would be an earthquake. And even though it was unlike Baba to call, Alhaji felt like he should have called. Or had he? Soothing a crying Soliat in his arm, he reached for his phone. He had received a call from one of his workers, probably it was when Yasmin had told him to pick the call. He should have obeyed. And what? Would he have changed things, would he have stopped the earthquake from happening? He had not really gotten the chance to ask who had died and who had survived amongst his workers, and although his heart reached out for them, his heart bled more for the girl in his arm. "Soliat, I'm so sorry."
"My father…..Baba…"
"I know." He felt at loss for words. The man, Baba, had also been his father and although he was a strict and unsmiling figure, there had been instances in Alhaji's childhood when he looked up to the man, and so the fact that he had been one of the victims also left a hole in his heart. The man had not been his real father, but he was going to be his father-in-law and he had denied both of them the opportunity, as well as the chance for Soliat to reconcile back with him.
"Take her out of here." Yasmin's voice jolted him out of his thoughts.
"I have failed, sister, again. I failed you and now I have failed her and her father."
She sighed. "Yes, you have failed. Now, can you get her out of here? I already feel like a heavy weight is on my shoulder, I can not deal with your self pity." She closed her eyes and wondered for the umpteenth time since she received the call, if Edegbe was alive.
…
Edegbe woke up to an eerie noise, male forceful grunts, feminine whimpers of pain and an unsuppressed cry of agony. It stunned him at first, and then he blinked his eyes to adjust to the light from the electric bulb. The smell of strong antiseptic wafted through his nose and when he tried to lift his upper body off the bed, pain shot from the side of his stomach and he collapsed back to the bed. It felt like deja vu , like the time he awoke from the hospital bed after being shot, and as before, he felt parched. He ran a finger across his Adam's apple as it moved with his attempt to swallow. Failed, he cleared his throat and tried again, then he coughed and regretted it.
A nurse, a young man with two trial marks on each sides of his cheek, alerted by the cough, came to his bed. "You're awake," he said dryly, his voice lacking both sympathy and empathy.
But Edegbe wasn't searching for one. "What happened?"
"You're one of the survivors."
"Of what?" He swallowed again, in a bid to hydrate his throat.
"The earthquake."
The swallowing stopped and his eyes shone in disbelief at the memory that resurfaced in his head. Without thought, he jumped out of the bed and pushed the nurse, who tried to stop him, to the side. The last he remembered was falling to the ground, and if his memory served him right, Efe was with him. If he survived, it means Efe did too. Right. Right? Dread filled him as he considered the other possibilities.
"No," he said aloud, and with his arm wrapped around his stomach, walked from bed to bed, scanning the faces of other survivors, saying, "Excuse me," and, "Sorry," to the attending nurses and doctors, to see if any of them was Efe.
"What are you doing?" The nurse assigned to him looked annoyed and asked more out of that annoyance than actual curiosity.
"Do you know who brought me here?" Edegbe asked impatiently, his eyes unfocused.
"No, but I know that you need to get back to your bed, your doctor would get angry. Your surgery wound almost opened up, you don't have to stress yourself.
"Is this the only room where survivors are kept?" Even Edegbe could hear the horror in his voice.
"No, but you have to get back."
He faced the nurse. "Where are the other rooms?"
He pointed towards the door. "There's a turn to your right outside, you'll find another one there, but you really need to get back to your bed, your health is at risk."
Edegbe inhaled. "Did a lot of people die?" He did not like considering the options, but for his sanity, he needed to be ready beforehand.
"Yes, and if you don't want to top up the number, you should go back and lie down, and not behave as if you have nine lives."
A lot of people that could include a tall, well built and dark man. Shaking his head in a fierce denial, he headed toward the exit.
"You're risking your health," the nurse shouted after him, not bothering to pursue him.
Edegbe exited the door that adjoined the narrow lobby. He took the right, following direction, and found another door which he opened without hesitation. He held unto the handle longer than intended as a wave of dizziness swept through him and he staggered lightly. His hand still circled his stomach, and with each step that was accompanied by intense pain, he knew he was really endangering himself, but the thought of going back to the bed without knowing the fate of his friend and employee was more dreadful than any pain. He walked slowly as he moved from bed to bed, scanning the faces for those that resembled Victor or Efe.
"Oh Jesus," he murmured softly. The gore was too much, the pain too terrifying to watch. "Please."
On some bed, a red tag dangled from the edge, and it read DEAD. Each time Edegbe approached one, it was with a heavy heart, and each time he walked away from one, it was with a sigh of relief.
Then he approached the bed whose occupant had a familiar face, he sighed in relief. Victor laid there, his clothes red and damp with blood. He had a troubled look on his face, like he was in a lot of pain and Edegbe wondered if he should call a nurse. He remembered seeing him run, watching the stones roll on top of him, that must have been a lot of pain for one man. With a shaking hand, he reached for the other man's hand and held it, he would comfort him, he would comfort him until a nurse arrived, until he was attended to, but Edegbe knew there was no use. Victor's hand was cold, too cold.
"Do you know him?" A nurse had arrived.
Not trusting his voice, he nodded. She should take it from there, she should tell him not to worry, assure him she would do her best and tell him to hope, all would be fine. Instead she said, "I'm sorry for your loss."
He understood her attempt at offering her condolences, but his eyes was fixated on Victor's chest. Victor's chest was not moving, did not have the gentle heave of a sleeping man, Victor was not sleeping, he was dead. From the edge of the bed, a red tag dangled.
"He was already dead when they brought him in, we needed somebody to identify the body before covering him up and sending him to the morgue." He nodded. "Who is he to you?"
He hesitated for a while. "Employee."
"Name?"
"Victor."
"Just Victor?"
He retracted his eyes from the corpse to look at the nurse, realizing that he did not really know the man's surname. "Osas," he said, "Write Victor Osas."
"Thank you for cooperating." Closing the book, the nures joined him in staring at the corpse. "His death must have been painful, look at his face."
He did not look, he had looked at him enough to realize that it was the first time he was seeing Victor's face in a painful expression.
"May his soul rest in peace." He heard the nurse said and then turned to leave. The nurse shouted after him and asked if he wanted to take the body, he did not reply, could not, the back of his eyes stung and he wanted to scratch the itch. He blinked a few times but it did not help his image from becoming blurry and replaced with the man running and telling them to go before him, then that of the stone rolling, rolling unto him, the first, the second, his scream of agony, the shouts for help he could not bring himself to make.
He did not know when he got to the door, or how he even opened it. When he opened it, the people he saw floated in front of him, but he could always make her out from a thousand.