The Inquest

He meandered up to my car, sullied in mud and unclean water. I assumed he was mad until I saw the variegated incisions on his cheeks. He grinned through the window, tapped on the glass with grimy muscles, and spat on the floor. 

“Open for me,” Baba Amina said. “I have something I want to tell you.” 

The elderly man and I were neighbors. He was one of my father’s tenants and lived in a single-room apartment with his wife and two daughters. Both girls schooled at the federal government college, and his wife was a personal assistant in a nearby hotel.

I left the glass up, disembarked from the car, shut the door, and asked the man what he wanted. 

“Jonah,” he said. “You normally see the head of my children, right?”

I had no suitable reply. Still, I nodded, and he went on.

“In my ancestral lineage, nobody inherited ogo, but my daughters Amina and Bridgette have big heads. My cranium is average, so I know not where they got their big heads. How can the almighty Baba Amina give birth to two women back-to-back?”  

“What is the problem, sir?” 

“God bless you, my brother. I need someone to drive me and my children to one hospital for a BMA test. Because I had one strange dream yesterday, and it has come to pass today and–”

“What test do you want to do?” I interposed. 

If the size of his daughters’ heads distressed him, it was not my concern. I dislike paranormal fanatics.

“BMA test,” Baba Amina deflated. “The bar-man said it will tell me if my children are legitimate.”

“It is DNA test,” I corrected him. “Not BMA.”

 “Okay… let me go and bathe,” Baba Amina replied, staring at his muddy watch. “School will soon close. When the girls come back, you will drive us to the hospital.”

He dashed into the compound.

Seeing the sun descend, my skin started sweating. I got back into my car, shut the door, and put on the AC. Never have these underprivileged tenants failed to amaze me. 

I chuckled, wondering about the hallucinations Baba Amina must have conjured up the previous night. The jester did not even know what DNA meant, and why should I blame him? He was a bricklayer, after all.

A few minutes later, two young girls pranced into the compound. As if aware of their arrival, Baba Amina emerged from his house. His hair and mustache looked primed and well cultivated, and he was in an impeccable caftan. Running toward my car, Baba Amina waved at his daughters. 

“Come to this side, two of you!” he yelled.

They boarded my vehicle. Baba Amina sat next to me and as I fired up the engine, the old man swiveled in his seat. 

“See,” he grabbed Bridgette’s head. “This one head looks like a watermelon. No wonder, whenever I drink palm wine and meat with their school fees, I always derive pleasure.”

“Daddy, leave my head!”

“Shut up! We are going to hospital and the fowl’s anus will soon be exposed.” 

As the car left the compound, Baba Amina set her head free and sat erect. 

“Brother Jonah, now I must tell you my dream.”

My fingers tapped the steering, and I kept my eyes on the road. 

“I don’t need to know your dream, sir.” 

“Yes, you do! It is very interesting and revealing. I might turn into a prophet of God. A genuine prophet, unlike all these amateur magicians we have in this country.”

Amina asked her father what he was talking about, and he told her to remain quiet when men were talking or else he would slap her.

“Yes,” he continued. “I was inside a dark room and I could not even see anything.”

“Daddy,” said Bridgette, forgetting the warning given to her sister. “If you could see nothing, how did you know it was a room?”

Baba Amina ignored her and constricted his face. 

“Talk one more word again, Bridgette, and you shall know that God does not have a wife, not to talk of a step-wife.”

“What did you see in this room?” I exclaimed, for the innocent girl's sake.

“God bless you. I was in this room and a light flashed and I saw a table. Two pictures were sitting on this table, and the people in them shocked me.”

We turned down Ojo road, and I knew there were only two hospitals there that performed DNA tests.

“Sorry, which hospital did you say we were going?”

“Stop at Jehovah the Mighty Warrior Clinic. It is just after Aboki market.”

“They don’t do DNA tests there,” I replied. Should I take you to my hospital? You can use my card, but you will have to pay the test fees yourself.”

Baba Amina nodded. “Drive us there; let me be finishing my story.”

  He extended his legs, so the conditioned air could waft on them favorably, and I mumbled something unpleasant regarding the enigma of delusion.

“My people say that God shows us what will kill us before we die,” he continued. “But not everybody can see. In one picture, I saw a yellow man in a red cap holding my wife at the waist. Those girls in the back seat were standing beside them, their teeth protruding like constipated donkeys. The funny thing is that, in the second picture, I was standing in the middle of many old people from my village. All of them are now dead and buried. I eloped from the room like someone a masquerade was chasing, and when I got into the street, I looked back to see a mighty duplex. As I tried to run away, the pictures came outside and the old people were laughing at me.”

“So how does that compel a DNA test, sir?” I asked. “Why not just ask Mama Bridgette if she knew any yellow men.”

“Our mother is not seeing any other men-o!” Amina screeched from behind. “She is a devout Christian!”

“Christianity will kill you and your mother there,” Baba Amina retorted. “Abeg, Brother Jonah, ask me what happened before I woke up.”

A diesel truck had obstructed the road leading to the hospital’s car park, and I had to honk twice before it's driver noticed us. 

“What happened?”

Baba Amina’s hands folded, and he frowned. A distant look came into his eyes. 

“I turned into a pillar of salt. When I eventually woke up, I said God forbid to that kind of evil dream.”

“You mentioned a bar-man earlier,” I said. “When did you meet him?”

“Yes, I woke up and my wife had gone to that her useless work. Those monkeys in the back seat have gone to school, so I was alone in the house, confused. I knew one old man from Ijebu-Ode that lived in Ijanikin, so I entered okada to visit him. People say he can interpret dreams like Joseph. But when I got to his house, his first son told me he had died a month ago.”

“That is sad?”

“It is, my brother. I left their house and as I was crossing the road, a red Prado jeep whooshed across a pot-hole and the marriage between tire and puddle left me covered in dirty water.” 

He stared out of the window, and for a moment, I did not care to encroach upon his obviously painful memories. 

“So what happened?” I asked, at last. 

He tilt his head backwards. 

“The car stopped, and the driver lowered his window. When he stuck out his head to apologize I saw his face, and it was yellow.”

We were now safely in the hospital car park, and I reached for the key. 

“Don’t tell me it was the self-same man from your dream.” I replied dispassionately. 

Baba Amina gripped his chest as if a bullet had just struck him. “How did you know? Are you a witch?”

I only smiled, killing the car engine.

“Well, it was him. I was so angry that I insulted him and hit his car. Then he zoomed off again, and I chased him down the street. People around thought I was a lunatic, because of the puddle incident. Then I saw the house from my dream up ahead and got an idea. I stopped chasing him and pretended to walk in the opposite direction. The mugu fell for it, and he drove into the compound gate and parked his jeep. I should have gone back home, but I snuck up to his fence and climbed over. That is when I saw the dog.”

His story had begun to interest the girls and me, so we remained seated in the car. I asked what he did after he saw the dog.

“I did not see it in my dream-o! That dog is a demonic spirit posing as an animal. You should have seen its drooling mouth. That beast is a spit-factory!”

Baba Amina adjusted his caftan and crossed his legs. Something about his captivating gaze made me want to believe his story. He spoke like someone coveting the highest enlightenment.

“I cannot fight dog because I have never eaten dog-meat, and the fence was too high. The beast came at me; I jumped over it and ran to the man’s jeep. I climbed to the hood of the vehicle and jumped on it, trying to attract the man’s attention before he came out to meet his dog and an unsolicited dead body. He heard me, but when he came out, there was a small gun in his hand.”

Gun? I thought. I thought he would have seen his wife.

“He shot at me twice and blasted his windshield glass. Thankfully, his car was close to the fence. That man must be a ritualist. I jumped like a woman who enjoys jumping into conclusion and landed in another person’s compound. From there, I saw myself in the street, and from the street, I found myself in a bar down the road.”

“Thank God the bullet did not touch you, sir.”

“If you had seen that idiot man, you would know that his eyes are bent. How could the bullet have touched me?” Baba Amina hissed. “Well, I met the barman and explained my predicament to him. He said I should not let my wife know, that I should take Amina and Bridgette to do the test. He even said one of his brother’s colleagues in Lekki committed suicide because his children’s test result came out negative. So that is why we are now here.”

“It must have been quite an adventure,” I asserted. “This problem came to you because you met a stranger from your dream?”

“Why did I now see him in real life that same day? Can you not see that my ancestors are trying to tell me something? What of the dead people who laughed at me?”

We alighted from my car, and I locked the doors. The four of us marched into the chilly hospital reception. It smelt like sickness and death and malaria medicine. A nurse ushered us into an inner room when I gave her my hospital card, and another asked if we cared for drinks and chin-chin.

“Your parents trained you well,” Baba Amina said to the young woman. “Bring frozen Pepsi for me. Bring nothing for my children.” — He winked at the nurse — “They might not even be my own.”

I told the baffled nurse to get me bottled water, and that we came for DNA testing.  

“Is it all of you, or only the girls?” 

“Just the girls. Thank you.”

She left to get our drinks, and we all stared at the television perched high in one corner of the room. Baba Amina made a joke about the television falling on someone’s head, and when the disoriented person recovered, he would not need to go anywhere because he was already in a hospital. 

I only laughed to be polite.

The nurse returned with our drinks and as I got up to pay her, the nurse with my card walked in.

“Mister Jonah and family,” she said. “The doctor will see you now.”

I paid for the drinks, and we filed into the white office. Doctor Ben smiled once he saw me. There was a stethoscope around his neck, and I could see some evidence of rice on his table.

“You told us to wait so you could eat?” I asked the doc, and his smile waned. Doctor Ben was my cousin from my mother’s side.

“Jonah,” His smile returned. “You and I know that this work is stressful. Live and let me live. Who are these beautiful ladies?”

Amina giggled, and her father delivered a secretive slap to her head. “Shut your mouth,” he said.

“They are my daughters,” Baba Amina declared to the doctor, frowning.

 So now, he was defending them.

“Really? They hardly look anything like you.”

I widened my eyes at Ben, shaking my head. He noticed, but the damage was done.

“That is why we are here.” Baba Amina sneered. “Look at my first daughter. She does not even like to steal meat from the pot, even when I set her up. Growing up, I was a chronic meat stealer and the entire village knew my name. You will do DNA test for them and tell me if I am their actual father. All of this rubbish must stop!”

I explained the man’s dilemma to my cousin, and he decided to cooperate. He told us he would schedule an appointment for the following afternoon, because of me, but Baba Amina would have to pay a deposit.

“I want the result today-today,” came the old man’s reply.

“That will not be possible because of the facilities we have on ground, sir. But we can take the samples today if you like, after you have paid the deposit.”

“Okay,” Baba Amina grumbled. “How much?”

Doctor Ben put his thirty-two teeth on public display. “That will be Three-hundred and fifty thousand naira… per sample.”

Baba Amina’s jaw dropped. Then he reattached it to his face, stared at me, and brightened up. “I don’t want sample. You people want to dupe me, shey? In my hospital, Jehovah the Mighty Warrior Clinic, when they want to do DNA, they don’t use sample. I cannot remember what they normally use, but I think it is like a syringe. You know, to take blood?”

Doctor Ben shook his head. “To conduct the test, you ought to pay Three-hundred and fifty thousand for each of your daughters. However, you do not need to pay it all at once; the deposit should be about a hundred grand each. You do not to pay the balance until the result is out.”

Baba Amina did not talk. He was looking at his eldest daughter, squinting. I placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“Brother Jonah?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“This hospital, what is their name?”

“General Hospital Ojo, it is owned by the federal government.”

He nodded. “No wonder.”

Doctor Ben got up from his seat, dangling his stethoscope. “Now that we have concluded, let me take you to the sample collection room. Kindly follow me.”

Baba Amina stared at my cousin, teeming with rage. “Follow you to where? Who told you I have concluded?”

“I saw you nod, sir.”

“And when you see lizards nodding, you say they too have concluded? You are a foolish man. Yahoo boy doctor, looking to dupe me of money I don’t even have.”

Then Baba Amina turned to face me. “Brother Jonah, stand aside. Stop confusing our doctor. Move away from the girls.”

I moved closer to the left wall, praying the old man did nothing ludicrous. 

“Now, doctor,” he said, pointing at Amina and Bridgette. “These my daughters are the ones coming for test. Jonah, move away! That young man is not my son-o! I do not know him from anywhere. Ignore the way he is dressed.”

Doctor Ben forced a smile. “So what do you want me to do, sir?”

“Tell me the real price of the DNA, you know, the female price. I don’t mind if you give me the children’s price, as none of them are above the age of eighteen. Have mercy on me, doctor.”

Everywhere became silent. Doctor Ben went back to his desk and made a phone call. We all knew whom he was calling.

“The price stands,” he said once he was finished. “If your pocket cannot handle it, then I suggest you go elsewhere.”

“You called security for me?” Baba Amina said. “God will punish your generation.”

He pulled Amina and Bridgette to himself.

“My lovely daughters,” he said. “Let us go home and leave these stupid, money-minded people. You are my children; let nobody tell you otherwise. Not that I cannot afford it, but even if we pay, this doctor will doctor the results. He wants my premature death. See his face like a criminal.”

The trio barged out of the office, and as the door creaked, Ben sighed. 

“Where did you discover those clowns?” he asked me.

I puffed out my cheeks. “They are some of our tenants. I only offered to give them a ride.”