When I woke up, it was on my mother’s laps I found my head, inside a car belonging to Mr Joe,the Judge. I thought it was a dream, but many hands signed to me that it wasn’t. They smiled at me.
“What’s happening?” I asked. My mother
wept all over
me. She was lean, too lean to survive the
next few days.
She would need a very serious medical
attention.
It was Moses who had all the patience to
narrate every
detail to me after I fainted:
Hanged? For what?” Moses voiced out.
“For what she did of course!” the warder
said.
“What did she do?” Mr. Joe asked.
“She killed her husband of course,” the
warder said
confidently and then a little iota of hope
greeted the air.
She was definitely not the same person
as my mother.
“Oh!” everyone sighed. “That’s not the
Hannah we are
talking about,” James said. “The one we
are asking for
was brought here three years back, fair in
complexion
and…”
“Sorry, we don’t know any Hannah apart
from the one that
was hanged this morning.”
Moses turned to my aunty and asked, “I
hope my Rose is
responding to treatment, aunty.”
“Yes she is,” my aunty said. “Poor Rose! I
didn’t know I
was feeding her the information raw. She
just coughed
now but she hasn’t opened her eyes yet.”
They began to comb every cell for my
mother who had
probably been checked into the prison
with a different
name. Eventually they got to a ward and
found her sitting
at a corner, lean and unkempt. She
couldn’t believe her
eyes.
“Here’s she!” James and my aunty
pointed at her since
they were the only two people who knew
her, apart from
the Judge, Mr. Joe. The first person she
asked for was
me, but she was rest assured that she
would see me in
the car where my aunty was taking care
of me.
My mother gave everyone in the cell a
peck before exiting.
They were up to ten inmates, crammed
together in a
single cell.
“Goodbye Iyabo,” they said, bidding her
farewell. Iyabo
was the name she was dubbed by the evil
people who put
her in the prison. They didn’t even
remember where
actually in the cell she was put since
they were not
intending to release her forever. Now it
was the turn of
those evil people to rot in cell.
The case was heard in court for the last
time. Moses was
our lawyer—they had theirs too, but no
way. It was
obvious that everything their lawyer was
saying was a lie.
There was nothing left to say.
Eventually, John and Toyosi were
sentenced to fifteen
years imprisonment each while the Chief
Prison Wardens
who pleaded guilty were sentenced to life
imprisonment
for the murder of Semiu, the man who
discovered John
but wasn’t permitted to live.
I became very popular, a deaf and dumb
girl who won a
case in court, yet having no voice.
Thanks to everyone
around me who were my voices—I had so
many.
When the sentence was made, it was
Biodun who gave me
the tightest hug. He even lifted me off
the ground and we
both staggered and fell, but he didn’t
stop laughing.
Somehow it was hard on me to imagine
that my biological
father was the one convicted, yet I was
happy about it.
Well…that is my destiny, I thought.
Bose congratulated me and gave me
some snapshots. I
didn’t even know she was present in the
court until I saw
her just now. I lowered myself at Laide
and gave her a
peck. Mrs Omotayo stroked my hair
gently and James,
seated by her, shook me. My aunty held
my hand, turned
it around and deposited a kiss right
inside my palm.
Moses exchanged greetings with the
other lawyer and
began to head for me. He held me tight
and kissed my
forehead. Maybe if
Biodun had seen us, he would be jealous,
but he is blind.
Mr. Immaculate, Moses’ father, pulled my
nose and
laughed. The journalists were all over me
to record my
voice. Unfortunately, all they had were
my gesticulations
—sign language. Finally my mother
rocked me into her
bosom and shed tears of joy.
Now I knew how everybody loved me.
Maybe it would be
same way people who would read my
story in the future
would also fall in love with me, I
thought. To my greatest
shock, some important figures were
waiting for me
outside the court. My class-teacher, Mrs
Oyindamola and
her husband had just led some people to
the court, herself
had just returned from the UK that
afternoon. I ran as if
somebody was chasing me and buried
my face inside her
bosom, weeping. She deserved much
more.
“Rose, do you remember Judimax?” she
asked me.
“Sounds familiar,” I said. I had
completely forgotten where
I heard the name from.
“They are the publishing company—here
to publish you
now! Hope your write-ups are intact.”
“Y—yes,” I signed. “But I already have
many publishers—
you, my uncle, my aunty’s husband,
Moses’ father, the
Judge and…”
“Yes! One book one thousand publishers,”
Mrs Oyin said
with a smile. “We shall all be your
marketer while
Judimax publish you because they know
how to do it
best.”
I shook hands with them—three men and
two ladies. It
was as if I was dreaming.
To be continue
