THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB

They came into my office that day, looking like a strange pair. She was suckling an orange like a child. He held her little fingers tenderly. She looked pale, but very pretty.
She couldn’t be more than 15 years. He was a tall man; perhaps in his middle thirties. He was holding a laboratory form, which he presented to me.
“My wife wants to do a blood test,’’ he said.
I quickly masked my surprise. He was a well-known figure around my working area. I never knew the man has a wife, let alone a ‘child-wife.’
This is cradle snatching!
I quickly glanced through the lab form. She was for widal and malaria parasite tests.
I brought out my needle, tourniquet and syringe. I collected about three mills of blood. I watched the tears gathered in her beautiful eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks. I tried to soothe her while the husband spoke to her in a gentle voice, reserved for kids.
“Please come back in the evening for the result,” I told them.
I watched them leave.
What an odd pair! Is it father and daughter or little sister and big brother?
They didn’t come back until the following morning. My boss had run the tests and she had traces of typhoid. I gave the result to them. They took it to the doctor on duty.
I had almost forgotten about them, when after some days interval, I was going into the ward to collect a patient’s blood sample when I saw that the next patient to the afore mentioned patient was none other than ‘the child-wife’ patient of the other day.
Her name was Yetunde. She looked very ill and emaciated.
When she saw me, there was a glint of recognition in her pale eyes. She smiled weakly at me and I crossed over to her bed side.
“I didn’t know you’ve been admitted.”
It was more of a question than a statement. A shrug from her thin shoulders.
“Where is your husband,” I asked.
“Alhaji will soon be here,” she replied in Yoruba.
I later inquired from some nurses about Yetunde’s health condition.
I learnt her case was a mysterious one. According to the nurses, she had been treated for typhoid, yet there seemed to be no improvement. In fact, everyday her condition continued to deteriorates.
Even now, I can’t explain, it but Yetunde seemed to have a magnet that drew me irresistibly to her. I made it a point of duty to always see her whenever I get to the office. Her mum soon started sleeping with her in the ward.
As each day crawls by, so the life of Yetunde slowly ebbed. I rarely saw the affectionate husband come to visit her.
She kept emaciating to the point that I feared she would break. She hardly eats and keeps throwing up whatever little food dared to pass through her throat.
Tears soon became her daily companion. Her mum didn’t help matters. The old woman was at her wit end, unsure of what to do in the event of inevitable death. The mother too sought solace in tears.
I was crying inside my heart. I wished I could do something to alleviate Yetunde’s suffering.
I didn’t know whether to comfort Yetunde or the old mother. Many a time I had come in to find them hugging each other tightly; while wallowing in tears.
Soon arrangement were made by the Director of the hospital to transfer Yetunde to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, since her condition was getting worse.
On the day that she was to leave, I tried as much as possible to set to office on time, so that I could say goodbye to her.
By then we had become very close. Immediately I got to the office, I dropped my handbag and ran quickly to her ward. I saw that her bed was empty. I inquired from the nurses on duty and was told that Yetunde died during the night. Tears slowly trickled down my cheeks.
Like I said before, Yetunde supposed husband lived right around the corner of where our hospital is situated. A few months after the deceased of Yetunde, Alhaji bought about four fleets of car, packed out of his one room apartment at the ghetto and rented a duplex at Gbagada Estate.
The kind of girls he started parading in his cars were nothing compared to Yetunde, who was nothing more than a child. These ladies were real sophisticated looking.
Soon, too soon, Yetunde was forgotten.
Can Alhaji ever forget? Do you see any connection between Yetunde’s death and Alhaji’s sudden catapult into wealth? Perhaps you are thinking what I’m thinking, that maybe…