Test Of Faith

The Debt Of The Displaced

Bringing Chidi home was not the celebration I had imagined. Our small parlor, once filled with the smell of Papa’s tobacco and the sound of his laughter, now smelled like a sub-acute ward. Chidi sat in the worn armchair, his chest wrapped in heavy gauze.

I had to become his nurse, his respiratory therapist, and his guardian. Every four hours, I performed the ritual. I would carefully peel back the edges of the dressing to inspect the thoracostomy site—the small, jagged hole between his fifth and sixth ribs where the tube had been. I was looking for the nightmare: Subcutaneous Emphysema. I would press my fingers gently around the wound, terrified I would feel that "Rice Krispies" crackling sensation under his skin, which meant air was leaking into the tissues.

"Deep breath, Chidi," I whispered, holding the Incentive Spirometer to his lips. "You have to keep the alveoli open. We cannot let the lung collapse again."

I watched the little plastic ball in the chamber struggle to rise. His oxygen saturation was stable at 94%, but his breathing was shallow, guarded by the pain of the internal sutures. I spent hours with my ear pressed to his back, listening for the vesicular breath sounds. I dreaded hearing the "silent chest" or the dullness of a pleural effusion—fluid building back up where only air should be. I tracked his respiratory rate obsessively, my heart hammering every time it rose above twenty breaths per minute. I was a girl with a Bible on her nightstand and a stethoscope around her neck, fighting a war against a microscopic leak in a boy’s chest.

While I guarded Chidi, Isaac was fighting a different war. He no longer had the dignity of a roof or the shade of a workshop. He was now a "roadside mechanic," working under the brutal Lagos sun near the Ojuelegba flyover.

I went to bring him lunch one afternoon, and the sight broke my heart. Isaac, the man who had managed Lekki contracts, was lying on a piece of greasy cardboard in the dirt. The dust from the yellow Danfo buses coated his skin until he looked like he was made of earth. There was no hydraulic lift here; just a rusted jack and the constant threat of the "Area Boys."

"Oga, you gree for the weekend tax or make we scatter this motor?" a young man with bloodshot eyes shouted, kicking Isaac’s toolbox.

I watched Isaac crawl out from under a battered Toyota. He didn't fight. He didn't yell. He just reached into his pocket and handed over a crumpled note. He was a lion who had clipped his own claws to save my brother. Every time he turned a wrench in that dust, it was a reminder of the 1.5 million Naira he had bled out for us. The noise of the city—the screaming conductors, the grinding gears, the smell of burning rubber—was his new reality. He was working twice as hard for a tenth of the pay, and he was doing it without a single complaint.

The man who bought Isaac’s shop didn't stay in Ebute Metta. He started appearing in our lives like a recurring fever. We called him The Chairman. He didn't wear grease; he wore white linen agbadas that stayed miraculously clean in the Lagos filth.

He pulled up to the roadside where Isaac was working in a black SUV that cost more than a street of houses. He didn't get out. He just rolled down the tinted window.

"Isaac," The Chairman said, his voice smooth like oil. "The shop is doing well. But you know, the deed I bought... it has some 'legal complications.' The interest on the quick cash I gave you is growing. You are a talented man. It is a waste to see you fixing brakes in the gutter."

"I paid the price we agreed on, Chairman," Isaac said, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Agreement is for people with options, my friend," The Chairman smiled, showing a single gold tooth. "I have a job. A special job. A fleet of vehicles that don't go to regular mechanics. If you do this for me, maybe we can talk about your 'debt.' If not... well, I hear your 'secretary' has a very sick brother. It would be a shame if the electricity in their house suddenly stopped working. Those oxygen machines need power, don't they?"

The threat was a cold blade against our necks. We realized then that the money hadn't been a gift; it was a leash.

At night, when the city finally quieted down, the real ghost returned. The grief for Papa wasn't a loud scream anymore; it was a heavy, suffocating silence.

I found myself standing in the kitchen, staring at the pot of soup. Automatically, I reached for three plates. I began to ladle the rice, my mind drifting to the way Papa used to complain that the pepper was too much, even as he reached for a second helping. I turned to call him, the words "Papa, come and eat" already on the tip of my tongue—and then the silence hit me.

The chair at the head of the table was empty. His glasses were still sitting on the side table, coated in a thin layer of dust. I sat down and looked at Chidi, who was staring at the empty seat too. We didn't talk about it. We couldn't. To speak his name was to admit that the "Girl of Sorrows" had lost her final protector.

I looked at my Bible. It was still closed. I wasn't ready to talk to the One who let the tanker brakes fail. I felt like a widow of the spirit—trapped in a house of memories, nursing a brother who was a walking miracle, and owing a debt to a man who wanted to turn us into criminals.

I finally picked up the Bible, not to read it, but just to feel its weight. "You have a lot to answer for," I whispered to the dark ceiling.

After Chidi fell asleep, the hum of the oxygen concentrator felt like a ticking clock. I sat on the kitchen floor, the Bible Isaac had saved from the dust resting between my feet. I didn't open it. I looked at the ceiling, at the cobwebs in the corner, and finally, I began to speak. Not a prayer—a deposition. A list of charges.

"Are You even there? Or are You just a name we shout to keep from screaming in the dark?" my voice was a jagged whisper.

"I remember the day Mama died. I was the one who led the 'Praise and Worship' that morning. I sang until my throat was raw, telling everyone that You were a Healer. I believed it. I told her, 'Mama, don't worry, the hem of His garment is enough.' I watched her eyes go dull while I was quoting Psalm 103. You let me look like a fool in front of a dying woman. You let my faith be the last thing she heard before the silence took her."

I slammed my fist against the floor, the pain a welcome distraction.

"And then I ran. I hated You. But then came Isaac. He was the only good thing in this desert, and I thought, 'Maybe this is Him. Maybe God is trying to apologize.' So I came back. I dusted the Bible. I told the market women that You were a Fortress. I stood in that workshop and told a crying caterer that Your mercies are new every morning. I was Your best PR agent, God! I was selling Your goodness in a city that was trying to eat me alive!"

I stood up, pacing the tiny, cramped kitchen. "And what was my reward? I give You my heart again, and You take my father’s life? He went to buy a prayer shawl! He was coming to talk to YOU! A tanker? Really? That’s the best the 'Creator of the Universe' could do to protect a faithful man? You crushed him like an insect. You let Chidi’s lung pop like a balloon while I was probably midway through a 'Hallelujah' at the workshop."

I picked up the Bible and shook it at the ceiling. "You say in Hebrews 13:5 that You will never leave us or forsake us. Liar! You forsake us every time a bus crashes. You forsake us every time a hospital demands a deposit for a dying child. If Isaac hadn't sold his soul to that Chairman, Chidi would be in the ground next to Papa right now. You didn't save him. A man with grease on his hands saved him. You were just the silent spectator, watching the tragedy unfold from Your high throne, eating the incense of our tears."

I sat back down, exhausted, the fire in my chest turning to cold ash. "I’m holding this book because I have nothing else to grip. Not because I trust You. I’m holding on because if I let go, I’ll fall into the lagoon. But don't expect a song. Don't expect a thank you. You owe me, God. You owe me a father. You owe me a mother. And You owe Isaac his shop back."

Every night, the medical reality hit. I had to perform Chest Physiotherapy on Chidi to prevent pneumonia. I would cup my hands and rhythmically clap against his back—thump, thump, thump—trying to dislodge the mucus from his lungs.

"It hurts, Bianca," he would whimpering, his eyes wide and glassy.

"I know, Chidi. But if we don't clear the lungs, the pressure will build. We can't have another shift."

I was obsessed with his thoracic expansion. I used a measuring tape around his chest to see if his lungs were inflating equally. If the left side moved a millimeter less than the right, I would panic, my mind racing through the signs of Tension Pneumothorax recurrence. I lived in a world of cyanosis checks and capillary refill timings. I was no longer a sister; I was a sentry guarding a fortress that had already been breached.

Went to the roadside where Isaac worked. It was near the "Obalende" bus park, a place where the air is 90% carbon monoxide and 10% desperation. Isaac was trying to fix a 'Danfo' bus, his legs sticking out from under the chassis while the driver screamed at him to hurry up.

"I have a load of passengers! You think I have all day for your slow hand?" the driver barked, spitting on the ground near Isaac’s head.

Isaac didn't say anything. He just tightened a bolt. When he crawled out, his face was unrecognizable, covered in a mix of black oil and grey Lagos dust.

"Isaac, let's go home," I said, wiping his forehead with my wrapper.

"I can't, Bianca. I need to make the daily 'settlement' for the Area Boys, or they’ll burn my toolbox tonight. And the Chairman... he sent a message. He wants me to meet him at a warehouse in Apapa tonight. He said if I don't show up, he'll send 'the boys' to check on your brother's oxygen machine."

The fear in his eyes was a new kind of tragedy. Isaac, who used to command a shop with three apprentices, was being bullied by street thugs and threatened by a kingpin. The price of Chidi's breath was Isaac's dignity, and the cost was rising every day.

We took a bike to Apapa. The warehouse district was a graveyard of rusted shipping containers and broken dreams. The Chairman was waiting inside a refrigerated container that had been converted into a plush office. The contrast was sickening—outside was the heat and the rot; inside was white leather and chilled champagne.

"Isaac. Bianca," the Chairman said, not looking up from a stack of Naira notes he was counting with a machine. Whirr-whirr-whirr. The sound of the money felt like a mockery.

"I have a fleet of trucks," he said, his gold tooth glinting in the LED light. "They carry 'sensitive' cargo. Parts that aren't easy to find. I need a mechanic who can't be bribed by the police, and a secretary who knows how to keep two sets of books. One for the law, and one for me."

"We aren't criminals," I said, my voice trembling.

The Chairman finally looked at me. His eyes were like two pieces of black glass. "You are survivors, Bianca. In Lagos, that's the same thing. You want Chidi to keep breathing? You want Isaac to have a roof over his head? Then you will work for me. You start tomorrow. Apapa Wharf, Gate 4. Don't be late."

As we walked out into the humid night, I clutched the Bible under my arm. It felt heavier than ever. I wasn't praying, but I was holding on—holding on to the only weapon I had left as I stepped into the mouth of the lion.