What a Next of Kin!

Chapter Nineteen

97 Chapter Nineteen D ebo and her mother soon forgot about Ndi and settled onto taking care of the child. For the first time, she had the feel of personal child-caring. She curdled the child, bathed her, and fed her though with canned milk. When the child fell asleep, she proudly lay down with her. When they got up, her admiring mother remarked, “Can you imagine that? What you have done, what you have experienced, especially if you had complemented it with breastfeeding, is the essence of motherhood, money cannot buy it. All human relationships are based on it. It is priceless. There are thousands of women longing for that experience but they cannot have it.” On her part, Debora full of herself, exhaled and released her satisfaction with, “It is wonderful mama”. From then, the two shuttled the baby between them and forgot about any other thing in life. Their day proved rather short and so the evening came prematurely. By 10 o’clock, nothing seemed abnormal. At midnight, Debo started; Ndi had not returned. Did he decide to spend the night in Douala? It was late for her to go and ask Mr. Ndeb if Ndi had told him he would spend the night in Douala. So, she consoled herself with the thought that he might have decided to spend the night in Douala. Early in the morning, she went and asked Mr. Ndeb whether her husband had told him that he would spend the night in Douala. Mr. Ndeb shook his head and said, “No”. “Where should he be then? He did not return. Yesterday, he left in anger because I refused to accompany him to Douala. It may be he has ended up in another woman’s 98 Charles Alobwed’Epie house. Yes, he has; else where is he? Let him return, I shall see where he will enter. I swear to God, he will not enter my house today,” she lambasted and returned in a whirlwind. Since she did not give Mr. Ndeb the chance to respond, he followed her to her house and advised her to calm down. He said he did not think of anything abnormal. He had listened to Radio Buea, but there was no accident announced along the Tiko/Douala road that day, so, he believed Ndi might have spent the night in Douala to catch up with work because of the on-coming national day. That response clicked open Debo’s mind. On the one hand she feared the possibility of an accident, on the other; she thought her husband spent the night in Douala to catch up with work. The fear of the possibility of an accident was dispelled by the fact that Radio Buea did not announce any accident along the Tiko/Douala road. So, she eased up with the belief that her husband had spent the night in Douala to catch up with work. Just as the family settled on that and started going about their daily cores, news filtered in that a car wreck reminiscent of Ndi’s car was discovered a good distance from the main road in a ravine about a kilo meter on the French Cameroon side of the Mungo bridge. There was blood in the wreck but the driver and passengers were not found. The driver seemed to have skidded off the road and hit an embankment that propelled the vehicle over the gutter without leaving a telltale trace. Thus several people passed by without noticing that there was a car in the ditch fifty meters from the road. When Mr. Ndeb got the news, he did not hide it from Debo. He told her straight but cautioned her against overt manifestation of grief before they knew what had happened. Then he asked one Mr. Sone a Field Assistant, to allow them the use of his car. The three immediately left for the scene. They identified the wreck as Ndi’s car but were confused on where his remains would be. 99 “Since this is French Cameroon territory, I believe we should go to Bonaberi police station and inquire,” Mr. Sone suggested. There was no gainsaying. They left for the police station and there the police told them that at around six o’clock last evening, a truck driver came to report to them that there was an accident along the Douala /Tiko road. According to him, he saw...