Mr. Haruna stepped away from the door to let Edegbe pass. His gaze was dauntingly still and obvious, the dislike evident on his face. "What type of juju did you use on Yasmin? I made a lot of research and saw that Bini people use juju a lot, so definitely you have used something on Yasmin."
"Are you asking so that you can use the same thing?"
Haruna's mouth fell open.
"The Baba that gave me the juju said we can't use it twice on the same person, so you have to get a new one," he said.
"You think I would stoop so low to such underhanded methods? When you woo a woman, you don't use juju, you make her like you naturally."
"And so far, your natural method did not work." Edegbe stared back at him, not backing down.
"You have no shame at all."
He sighed. "See, Mr. Haruna, I just survived a life threatening experience and if you're not glad that I did, I'm glad for myself. And even though I don't like you as much as you don't like me, I don't wish you death, so please let's not have unnecessary arguments like this. Just take me to where my friend is and go back to use your natural methods on Yasmin."
Haruna did not respond and did not argue further, he did not like the sarcasm and he took it to heart, but the other man was at a more advantage than him in Yasmin's favour. He took him through the corridors and with each turn, a wave of dizziness hit Edegbe at the labyrinth of the wall. When they finally stopped in front of a door, he exhaled through his mouth. Haruna did not do in, he turned around and left while Edegbe entered the room.
It was a small sized room with a bed on it and in that bed Efe laid, his tall figure covering the entire length. His huge body covered one third of the bed, a drip set fixed on his arm. His head was wrapped in a bandaged, and although his eyes were closed, he was breathing.
"Thank God," Edegbe said aloud, watching the going up and coming down of his chest with each intake and exhale of breath. "Thank God." A pang of relief swept through him.
"Did your woman tell you I was dead that you are behaving like this?" The eyes of the sleeping man opened. His voice sounded weak, almost inaudible and the turning of his head to look at Edegbe was slow. "Jesus, are you crying?" He tired to lift his hand to point at his tears but it dropped. "Even a new born baby would not feel as weak as I feel now."
"Don't try to do anything, you don't know the kind of gore you escaped."
They stared at each other for a while, longer than a while and on their faces were expressions of relief for each other. Efe spoke first. "I'm glad you're safe."
"This is all my fault," Edegbe said.
"How is it your fault?"
He thought about it. "You're right, how is it my fault?"
Efe managed a smile. "I think what you mean to say is that you're just happy I'm alive and would have spent all your life feeling guilty if otherwise had happened seeing that you literally dragged me here."
"This is not time to tell jokes."
"I thought you started it. Are you not going to sit?"
He shook his head.
"You look like you could use a seat."
Edegbe was going to decline again when another pang of dizziness hit him and he staggered.
Alarmed, Efe propped his body on his elbow. "Are you okay?"
"I feel like I can walk on water." He supported himself by leaning on the wall.
Efe chuckled.
"What? I thought we were doing jokes."
"Come and lay down close to where my hand can touch you."
"When you say it like that, you make me want to lie down on the floor."
"Come, lie very close to me where my hand can touch you—"
"Shut up."
"—in case you need to be attended to. You have such a corrupt mind."
"You're crazy." But he walked to the bed and laid down. Silence reigned between them, and with the comfort of the bed, his eyes started to close. After a few minutes, when the grogginess started to sit in, he muttered, "Victor died."
"Edegbe, sleep."
…
Soliat stirred to wakefulness of a new day, her head throbbing from a mild headache. She supported herself and sat upright to see Alhaji watching her.
"Brother Abubakar." She felt her eyes dim, making him appear smaller than he really was.
"You cried yourself to sleep," Alhaji told her, "and slept for a very long time. I was going to wake you but Yasmin talked me out of it. How do you feel?"
She shrugged. "What happened?"
"The servants that managed to survive told me he came to the house." He took her hand, caressing it. "You know how he is, always coming without informing anybody. It's unfortunate he was there, but that's what happened, I'm sorry, Soliat."
She sniffed and blink the tears from her eyes. "He always wanted to make up with me, I—"
"Shh," he hushed her. "Don't talk like that, you know what his conditions were."
"I was so mean to him, he died coming yo check up on me."
"You and I know that he came to remind you of your need to get married, or probably even set you up with somebody seeing the grace period he gave us elapsed already."
"It's easy for you to give reasons, he was not your father." Soliat's voice lowered when she said 'was', and fresh hot tears settled in her eyes at the realization that Baba was now a 'was', a thing of the past. It grieved her that she referred to him as a 'was', the easiness at which she did more striking, as though she had been ready to refer to her father as a past tense all her life.
"He was a father to us too, Yasmin and I. Personally, I looked up to him, so this is our loss. I know we had our own fights, but I looked forward to the day he would my father-in-law." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and nestled her close to his chest. "Don't cry, you've cried too much already."
"He's the only family I have left."
"That's not true, you have me and Yasmin."
She nodded and clung harder to him. He patted her reassuringly until she sobered.
"I'm here for you, you know that." He pulled away to look at her face. Slowly he kissed her tears away. "I'm not letting you go through this alone, huh?"
"I know."
"Let me call Yasmin."
Yasmin looked vexed when she arrived, barely trying to control her frustration. But when she looked at Soliat, at her tear streaked face, she sighed. She seemed to be holding back a lot of emotions, like she would snap if she was left alone and wanted to put on a brave face in front of people. But Abubakar and herself weren't just people. "Your father only die once, cry if you want to, there's no need holding back your tears."
"Yasmin," Alhaji warned when Soliat's eyes flooded with tears.
She ignored him and continued. "Baba is not the only one who died, grieve for him now the wound is still fresh so you can guiltlessly forget about it when the need arises."
Alhaji looked as confused as his voice sounded. "What kind of consolation is that?"
"At least, he left you with a lot to inherit. I may not be a huge fan of Baba, but he looked after me and my brother."
"He shouldn't have died," she managed to say, her voice broken.
"No body should have died, it's unfortunate that something like this happened. And well, he's your father, he would normally die before you."
"But not like this, Sister Yasmin," she argued. "And we were in bad terms till he died."
"I had told you to leave my stupid brother if he wasn't ready to put a ring on your finger and make peace with your father."
"Hey, that's false accusation," Alhaji defended, placing a hand on his chest. "I'm hurt, but you're calling me your brother again."
"Abubakar would grovel for me to call him my brother even if it means I'm adding shit to his name." Soliat managed a smile and Yasmin placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Allah will give you the strength to bear your loss, Solia."
"Our loss," she corrected.
She nodded. "Our loss." She patted her shoulder. "I have things to do, if you know you want to keep seeing Abubakar, tell him to not call me again."
"What a threat." He squeezed her hand. "Thank you, Yasmin." And watched her leave. "So, do you want to eat?"
"How many people died?"
"Try and get your mind off that, okay? You need to eat."
She shook her head.
"You need strength." He lifted her chin so he could look at her face. "I know you're going through a lot, but I'm here." He brought his face closer and pecked her lips. "We'll go through this together." He managed to coax her into eating, watching her so he can urge her to eat more, to chew slowly, and drink more water. And after clearing the plates, he palavered into taking her bath and waited until she finished. As she dressed up, her defenses to weak to rebel against him, he thought about teasing her, but decided against it, she needed him more serious than she needed his levity, her state was too grim for frivolities.
When she joined him back on the bed, he caressed her hand until she stilled into a deep sleep. He waited for her breaths evened into a rhythm before he slipped away from the bed and out of the room. As he walked along the lobby to his own room, he was met by Haruna and Bello who looked pleased, like they had been searching for him. While Haruna looked hale, the latter, with his arm bandaged to his neck, looked like the victim of the tumbling that happened hours ago.
"Alhaji," the young man called. "You're not injured."
"Fortunately, I was out of the province when it happened. What happened, you don't live in the neighbourhood?"
"I had to visit someone." He raised his arm. "Just a scratch compared to what happened to other people."
"I barely recognized Ahmed when I saw him, kai," Haruna said before switching to Hausa, as though only in his dialect he could explain the gore he witnessed. "Wallahi, even Duada's legs had to be amputated, better his leg than his life sha."
"Most of the causalities happened to the servants as some of the elite were not even at home, like in my case," Alhaji said.
"That is good," Haruna said. "Better those lowlifes than us."
"Everybody's life matter."
He disagreed. "The rule is very simple, there are more poor people than rich, if anything should happen, it should be to the poor ones who are dependent on us. Imagine that you had— no." He thought for a while. "Yes, I heard about Edegbe's driver. Imagine that Edegbe had died instead of his driver, everybody who depends on Edegbe for a means of livelihood would go poor, their helper is gone, but as his driver died guess who was affected? Nobody, zilch, I tell you."
"You could not use Alhaji for that instance but you're comfortable using the man, you hate him that much?" Bello said.
"The man is a fool, if he ever goes bankrupt, I'll employ him as my servant."
"You're still bitter he won Yasmin?"
"He's using juju!" That was he only plausible explanation, the man was Bini, anything of such would not be surprising.
Bello shook his head, laughing. "People take heartbreak different ways. And, oh, I heard what happened to Soliat."
"Hmmm," Alhaji responded.
"It must be a very difficult time for her."
"Yes, but she has me."
"I know, but your presence doesn't make the loss less difficult. I mean, it's her father, and I don't think they ever made up, she'll be feeling very guilty about—"
"Soliat is fine," Alhaji interrupted. "She has me and Yasmin and we're all he needs. Now, excuse me."
Bello turned to watch the man leave. "He behaves as if he owns her life."
Haruna shrugged. "People take heartbreak different ways."